Although I’ve since created my own Japanese App, Akebi was my go-to dictionary and drilling app for years.

It all started during my year in Tokyo, I was studying at KCP International and doing awful in class. The rigorous pace, and my lack of language skills didn’t help. Nothing seemed to stick no matter what.

After my first term at KCP, we had a Christmas break for nearly one month. During this time, most students left Japan to visit their home countries. I barley had enough money to study in Japan, so a $1500 plane ticket was out of the question. My grades were plummeting and I was close to failing.

One of my dormmates came back from the US early and recommended Akebi. Honestly this saved my ass from failing and possibly getting kicked out of Japan. I started using Akebi, and drilling.

All of the advice I heard online previously was against drilling. “Comprehensible Input is the ONLY way to learn a language” is horrible advice for beginners. What are they going to do with that? But that’s what was parroted at the time by most linguists (and largely still is).

Drilling saved me. During this month-long Christmas break, I would “drill baby drill” until I forced the words into my memory. I’ll explain the studyflow:

I’d grab a few handfuls of words, say 15-30.

Add them to Akebi’s flashcard system.

Turn on “focus 7 until 3 in a row”.

And I went after it. I would start the flashcards, testing on kanji readings.

Then I would do it again, but this time I had it show English, and I would write down the characters.

After that, I’d throw the words into Memrise for SRS retention.

And finally, I’d do listening dictation, using our textbook’s CD. I would practice dictating for 1-2 hours per day.

This routine saved me. After my first term was over, studying was much easier. I was able to remember almost everything I studied using this method. The drilling kept everything in my short term memory. The listening dictation allowed me to practice using what I was learning. The SRS helped preserve the words over time.

I built my own app based on these principals. Scaffold a comprehensive environment via drills, practice comprehension via listening dictation, maintain vocab with SRS.

Akebi has been a huge help in my Japanese journey, and continues to serve it’s purpose as one of the best Japanese dictionary apps of all time.

Special thanks to the creator for keeping Akebi free all of these years. I highly recommend giving it a try.

If you’re interested in trying out my app, feel free to check it out! Sakubo – Japanese SRS App