Kanachan: Japanese Keyboard

Every kana stays on the screen, so there are no flick gestures to memorise. Conversion runs on your iPhone and nothing you type is sent anywhere. One-time purchase.

Kanachan is a Japanese keyboard where every kana is printed on a key and stays where you left it.

If you are learning Japanese, the standard iPhone keyboard asks you to memorise something you cannot see: on a flick keyboard each key hides four more kana in four directions, and you only find out which is which by holding the key down. Kanachan takes the opposite approach. Every kana has its own key, visible at all times. There is no hidden rule to learn — if you can read the kana, you can find it.

The layout is the JIS kana layout, the same arrangement used on Japanese computer keyboards. You do not need to know it in advance: every key is labelled.

▼ EVERY KANA ON SCREEN

• All the kana laid out as keys, with nothing hidden behind a swipe direction
• Katakana, dakuten and handakuten, and small kana from the same layout
• Type at the speed you can read, not at the speed you can recall a gesture

▼ KANJI CONVERSION, ENTIRELY ON YOUR DEVICE

• A 100,000-word dictionary built into the app
• Context-aware candidates, compound words, and verb and adjective conjugations
• No network connection is used to convert anything

▼ IT LEARNS FROM YOU

• Words you choose move up the candidate list
• You can reset the learning data whenever you want

▼ YOUR OWN DICTIONARY

• Add names, technical terms and anything else you type often

▼ PRIVACY

Conversion does not require Full Access. Kanachan converts by reading a dictionary file stored inside the app, so you can leave Full Access switched off and still type and convert normally.

Full Access is only needed if you want the keyboard to remember the words you pick and to use your own dictionary. Both of those write to a database on your iPhone. Full Access is an iOS permission to write to storage on your own device — it is not permission to send data off the device, and Kanachan never sends what you type anywhere.

▼ FREE TRIAL, THEN A ONE-TIME PURCHASE

Everything is free for 30 days after you install the app.

After that, the free version keeps working with a 5,000-word dictionary and up to 500 user dictionary entries.

Premium unlocks the full 100,000-word dictionary, compound word generation and an unlimited user dictionary. It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription: you pay once and keep it. The App Store shows the price in your local currency (¥1,480 in Japan).

▼ WHO IT IS FOR

• People learning Japanese who can read kana but would rather not memorise flick gestures
• Anyone who already types Japanese with a kana layout on a computer
• Anyone who wants a keyboard that works without a network connection

▼ REQUIREMENTS

iOS 17.0 or later. iPhone and iPad.

▼ SUPPORT

If you have a question or a request, please get in touch from the settings screen in the app.