For those looking for fresh, new content to read in Japanese, I have just the app recommendation for you. It’s called Tangorin and it will make things oh so much easier for those wanting to improve their reading and expand their vocabulary. I’m a bit late in discovering this, but I wanted to share it in case there were people that didn’t know about this incredibly useful app.
apps
Cruising around with Yahoo Car Navi
Yahoo Car Navi or Yahoo!カーナビ , is a wonderful navigation app for those that live in Japan. I never hear anyone talking about it and I thought people should know more about it. Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking, “We have Google Maps, why would we need anything else?” Sit down, stay a while. 🙂
The best Japanese weather app and site

You’re going to want the best Japanese weather app available for checking the weather and staying prepared. The default weather app in iOS for iPhone is not the most helpful. This is especially true when you need to know when it’s going to rain, snow, etc.
I’ve tried a lot of different weather apps, but I settled on what I think is the best Japanese weather app around for both iPhone and Android. Let’s dive in and I’ll share the best sources for Japanese weather information.
Opera Mini review: A handy alternative to Safari
Time for something tech-related with this Opera Mini review. It is my new favorite browser for iOS. It has a really nice design with quite a lot of handy features. I recently switched from my previous Japanese cell phone provider to a cheaper MVNO. This is great for wallet, but I do have data caps when I am not using Wi-fi. One solution to this is using the Opera Mini browser.
The explosion of the messaging app LINE
I have no idea what people are using in the U.S. to message each other these days. The last I heard, people were using “WhatsApp” to message each other instead of paying fees for text messaging. For those that don’t live in Japan, you may not be familiar with the most popular messaging app that almost everyone with a smartphone uses: The popular messaging app LINE. It launched in Japan in 2011 and by 2013, it had already gained 200 MILLION users. That’s incredible growth. If you want to message people from Japan and want to know where you can find them, they’re all probably on the LINE app.
App Review: StickyStudy Japanese
I wanted to do a small review of StickyStudy Japanese. It’s an app for iPhone and iPad and is relatively inexpensive considering the amount of features and information included.
I’m not sure exactly when, but I think I discovered StickyStudy Japanese in 2011. I was preparing to take the JLPT N4 for the first time. I wanted to review all the necessary kanji so that I wouldn’t encounter unknown words on the test.