Up Next for the shows you follow, a Loop that waits for you in shadowing, channel photos under YouTube videos, and slightly faster taps. Up Next. When an episode ends on its own and there is nothing next in your Up Next list or in that show, Toku plays the newest episode you have not heard from a show you follow, in the same language. It tells you why that episode was picked, and you can play it straight away, pick something else, or stop. When you are caught up on every show you follow, nothing plays, and Toku suggests a few shows to try. After a long time with no touch, Toku stops at the end of an episode and asks "Still listening?". To choose what happens, open Settings, then Listening & Downloads, then "When a show ends": keep playing the shows you follow, or stop. Shadowing. Loop now waits while a word card is open and while your own recording plays back (the Me button), so it no longer plays the sentence under the card or over your voice. Close the card, or let your recording finish, and Loop carries on. YouTube channels. Under a video, the channel's name now comes with the channel's own photo instead of a letter. For some channels, the photo appears once you have opened the channel's page. Faster. Tapping a word brings up its meaning a little sooner.

A word card that shows every way a word can be read, an easier shadowing screen, long books that run on from chapter to chapter, and faster taps. Words with more than one reading. A word that can be read several ways now shows one button for each reading in its card: 方 shows かた, ほう, さま and more, and 和 shows hé, hè, huó and the rest. Tap a reading to see what it means. If you choose a different reading for the word in your text, the page shows it, and you can undo it. Faster. Tapping a word shows its meaning sooner, and the card opens more smoothly. A word you tap right after closing a card now opens without a pause. Shadowing. The sentence you are practising is large, with its translation, and the sentences before it sit above it, fainter the further back they go. Every sentence shows its start time: tap a time to go straight to that sentence. The buttons you press most sit in one large row: Previous, Again, Play or Pause, Next. Speed, Loop, Record and Auto sit in a smaller row below. Pause stops the audio and Auto together, and Next always moves on to the next sentence. Loop and speed. With Loop on, a short countdown shows when a sentence ends, then the same sentence plays again. Press Again to hear it straight away. Speed is now a dial: drag it, or flick it and it comes to rest on a step. Long books. Swipe past the last page of a chapter and the next chapter opens. Swipe back from a chapter's first page and the chapter before opens on its last page. YouTube channels. Under a video, tap More videos, or Go to channel in the ⋯ menu, to see that channel's newest videos and follow it. Tap a video and it opens right there, with its subtitles. Transcripts. While audio plays, the line being read stays in the middle of the screen and stands out from the rest. Focus view shows each sentence's time too, so you can tap to jump there. If you scroll away, one button brings you back. Your own language. On a phone set to Chinese, an English word's card shows its Chinese meaning only; where there is no Chinese meaning, the English one is marked EN. Chinese colours. Tone colours stay on every Chinese word, including words the dictionary lists more than once and readings you choose yourself.

One simple Languages screen, pages that fill the screen, and calmer days for big libraries. Languages. One simple screen asks three things: the language for the menus, your own language, and what you are learning. It is in the first steps and in Settings. The rest of the app follows your answer: a Chinese speaker can type 学习 in the Dictionary and find the Japanese 勉強. Reading. Most pages now fill the screen and turn the moment you swipe. Japanese and Chinese can be read in vertical columns: choose it in the Aa panel. If you prefer the old page, it is in Settings, under Reading. Big libraries. Deleting a big deck of words no longer freezes the app. It shows how far it has got, and if the app is closed part-way, it finishes the next time you open it. A deleted deck no longer comes back. Leaving the app and coming back no longer makes your phone stop while the widget, the reminder and the word counts are updated: that now happens in the background. Listening and watching. Your place in a podcast or a video is saved every few seconds, with far less work for your phone. A YouTube video offers every subtitle it has in a language Toku reads, opens in the video's own language first, and no longer lists the same name twice in its Subtitles menu. Words and meanings. Type a Japanese word in English letters in the Dictionary — mizu, taberu, tokyo — and it is found. Typing "water" now puts 水 first. The meanings of Chinese words no longer show the dictionary's raw notes, and more Japanese and Chinese words read correctly, among them 方 in polite Japanese, 唐辛子 and 深掘り, and 为 and 令 in Chinese. Links. An article opened from a link starts at its headline, not at the website's menu, and pages that only work inside a browser open in the Web tab.

Podcasts. An episode starts playing about two seconds after you tap it, and downloads are many times faster. Pictures. Channels show their own round picture on Home, on the channel's page and in Your shows and channels. Stories. A story without a picture gets a warm, colorful cover of its own, everywhere it appears. Home. From 6 November to 6 December, if you are learning Japanese, "30 Days to the JLPT" offers short stories and texts at your level and counts the days to the exam. Fixes. The card for かれ no longer suggests a wrong phrase, a podcast's page no longer guesses its language, numbered speaker labels such as "Speaker 1" follow your menu language, and Settings no longer calls built-in meanings "not installed".

Reading. The small readings over long numbers stay over their own number, never off the screen or on top of the next word. Reading. An English text with one Japanese name in it now opens as English, and its English words answer. Dictionary. A word found only in a language you are not learning now says so, instead of showing an empty page. Reading. When you finish a text, only texts in the languages you are learning are suggested next. Reading. A few Japanese words now read right: 十分 as "ten minutes" when it means minutes, and かれ as "he".

Videos. Videos show their own picture again, on Home and in your library.

Toku now opens a long text on the page you left, and no longer interrupts you while you read. And readers who speak Japanese get Japanese meanings for about 20,000 Chinese words. Back where you were. A text reopens on the page you left, also when that page is in the middle of a very long paragraph, and also right after this update. A long text opens a little sooner, too. No interruption while you read. Toku no longer asks you to rate it in the middle of a text. If it asks, it waits until you have left what you were reading. Writing a word by hand. In Dictionary, open a word and choose "Write" (the same card is in Review). The small numbered squares above the writing square are now buttons: tap one to write that character, in any order you like. The buttons under the square always show their names, "Watch", "Next stroke", "Undo" and "Clear", and a counter such as "Strokes 4 / 17" says how far you are. The buttons no longer hide under the tab bar. Drawing a character to look it up. The handwriting pad in Dictionary is calmer: the search field, the pad with "Undo" and "Clear" under it, the characters Toku read, then the results. The pad no longer moves while you draw. Videos. A video you have opened shows its own picture again, on Home and in your library. Also: at the largest text sizes the word card shows its first meaning, and the round buttons on a reading page show their signs whole. In a picture story, the "Aa" panel no longer covers the words you are adjusting. After you turn the phone sideways and back, the round buttons no longer sit on a line of text. If you read English. For readers whose own language is Japanese or Chinese: an English word on a web page now answers when you tap it. The card for an English word lists its meanings one per line, and says what kind of word it is once, in your language. The sheet that asks which language a show is in is tidy now. If you speak Japanese. About 20,000 Chinese words now show a Japanese meaning when you tap them, about 16,000 more than before, 地铁, 冰箱 and 钥匙 among them. The word card opens on the Japanese lines, and a line that is still English comes last. For common English words the everyday Japanese meaning comes first: "bank" is 銀行 and "letter" is 手紙. And 13 sentences in the Japanese menus now say what they should.

Toku now gets your first minutes right, whoever you are. And readers who speak Japanese get more of their meanings in Japanese. Choosing what to read. On the question "What do you want to read?", your own language is now the last row, marked "Your language". You can still choose it. You can pick two languages at a time, and Toku now says so calmly: once two are chosen, the third row rests until you turn one off. The same list is in Settings, under Languages. Nobody is asked about a language they did not choose. If you go on without choosing any, Toku no longer asks "How much Japanese can you read?". It shows you everything it has, with a switch between languages on "Start here" and on Home. If you chose English and not Japanese. Toku no longer offers you a kanji course or Japanese words to start with. And the story shelf tells the truth: "There are no English stories yet. Bring your own text: paste it, or open a file." The button under it, "Add your own text", takes you there. If you speak Japanese. 980 more Chinese words now show a Japanese meaning when you tap them, 你好, 电脑 and 香蕉 among them. And the Japanese meaning of an English word is now the right one: for "cat" it is 猫, the animal. Already using Toku? After this update, Home is the Home you had. Nothing is asked again. Also: when Toku cannot read a text, the message now names all three languages it can read, and the screen around it is tidier. On Home, "Which language are you learning?" lists your own language last too.

A polish release: the same Toku, easier on the eyes and easier to find your way around. Easier to read in daylight. In light mode, the small grey text on reading pages and the word card (the readings above words, labels, list numbers) is now one darker, warmer grey. Three of the four pinyin tone colours are a little darker, and neutral-tone syllables no longer fade away. Dark mode stays as it was, apart from a few very faint lines that are now clearer. The word card counts real meanings. With meanings in English, each numbered line for a Japanese word is now one meaning from the dictionary, with its near-identical words side by side: 最近 shows "2 meanings" where it used to show 7. For a Chinese word, two or three near-identical words share a line, and longer lists keep their numbers. At the largest text sizes the card shows the meaning first, before the other rows about the word. Stories get an "Aa" button, like the text reader: text size, line spacing, page theme, font, and readings shown or hidden. A story page now follows the reading theme you choose. Podcast transcripts read wider. Each sentence runs the full width of the screen, with its time on a small row of its own above it. No dark veil. In light mode the page no longer dims when a word card opens, so the sentence around the word stays as it was. A calmer Review tab. Write, Listen, Fill the gap and Flashcards share one look, ink on paper. The top bar has a gear and one menu: Import words, Export to Anki, Review Settings. And a review card follows your finger: flick it and it leaves at the speed of your flick. Settings opens at full height. On the free plan it says in words how many of today's word lookups you have used. In Study, the everyday things come first: Reminder, Cards, Widget. A smoother first run. Chinese has one short name on the first screens. Damo is on the Welcome screen. "Go to Home" stays on screen on the "Start here" page. And Toku downloads no stories while you are still choosing a language: pick only Japanese, and only Japanese stories are downloaded. Your widget's three looks, Ink, Big character and Landscape, are now three small pictures drawn with the word your widget is showing. Tap one to choose it. On Home, a story you are reading shows its own cover on the Continue card, with the page you are on. Privacy. A new switch in Settings, under Privacy & AI: "Share anonymous setup counters". A new install of Toku sends a few yes-or-no facts about getting started, with the seconds before your first tap, an anonymous device ID and the app version. Never your texts, your saved words, or anything you read. Turn the switch off and no more are recorded or sent. Also: the Licenses & Attribution page now says correctly that Google ML Kit comes under Google's ML Kit Terms of Service, and a podcast title no longer shows stray web code. Plus small fixes for the largest text sizes and for VoiceOver.

Words you've never reviewed now get their turn on your Home Screen widget. Before, the same few "due" words kept coming back; now every word you're still learning is shown in turn, none twice in a row, and words that are really due take at most one turn in three while others wait. And "due" now means due: the Review tab's Today card says "12 to review", not "12 due", when it counts words you've never reviewed, and a card no longer asks "Review — do you remember this word?" about a word you never reviewed. New to Toku? The first time you're back on Home after reading or listening for a bit, one screen — "Make Toku yours" — offers up to four one-tap setups: words on your Lock Screen, a sentence each morning, WaniKani (Japanese learners), and iCloud. Skip any and a "Set up Toku" card on Home keeps track, ticking each off as it's done. And the first time a save brings you to five words or more, Toku offers once to put them on your Lock Screen, if you have no Toku widget yet. Had Toku before this version? You get only the "Set up Toku" card: the screen never opens by itself, and nothing is offered when you save. Also new: a "What Toku can do" page under Settings → Help & About. The painting behind your Landscape widget now tells you what it is. Open a word from the widget and its page ends with a line naming the painting; tap it for a short note and a link to the museum's page. With Landscape chosen, Settings → Study → Widget lists all twelve paintings. Your Review tab is now a study home. Open it and see what's due today with one tap to start, then four ways to practise right where you can find them — Write, Listen, Fill the gap, and Flashcards — each one telling you in plain words if it isn't ready yet, and none of them ever changing your review schedule. Write mode: trace a saved word's characters by hand, with your finger or an Apple Pencil, over a faint guide. Each stroke settles into clean ink; a stroke drawn the wrong way fades, with a ring showing where it should have started. The card ends with Right, Nearly, or Again, with one plain reason — and a stroke order guide when it's Again. Write is practice only: it never changes your review schedule. You can now also open Write straight from a word's Dictionary page — look it up, tap Write, and trace it right there. New page renderer (try it): a faster way to read, if you turn it on. In Settings → Reading → "New page renderer" (off by default), pages turn instantly even in very long texts, a tapped word lights up right away, and Japanese and Chinese can be read in vertical columns. Follow looks and behaves the same, everywhere. Tap "+ Follow" on a show or channel and it becomes "Following" right where you tapped it — on Home, on the show or channel's own page, and in search. Your library is now "Your shows and channels" and "Your texts". Settings is one tap away from every tab. Choose your widget's look. Press and hold the Home Screen widget → Edit Widget → Style, and pick Ink (the plain dark card), Big character (the word's own character drawn large and faint behind it), or the new Landscape — a soft old painting behind the word, a Japanese woodblock print for Japanese words, a Chinese ink landscape for Chinese words. The same choice is in Settings → Study → Widget → "Widget style". If your Definitions language is Japanese, far more of the Chinese words you tap now answer in Japanese — nearly all of the 3,000 Chinese words readers look up most, up from about two in three. This version also uses less of your data: pictures and lists your phone already has are not downloaded again. Also in this update: two small fixes. Settings now shows the word "Widget" at the top of that section, instead of a line of internal text that was never meant to be seen. And a rare, very formal Japanese sentence ending — such as "でありました" — is read as its own word again instead of being merged into the word in front of it, so "形見でありました" now shows "形見" (keepsake) as its own word.

Your widget now changes words on its own, and on your terms. Tap the word on your Lock Screen or Home Screen widget and the next word appears at once, without opening the app. It also changes by itself: every 10 minutes by default, or 30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours, or only when you tap (Settings → Review → Widget → "A new word every"). "Got it" and "Forgot" on the widget move straight to the next word, and a starter word opens its dictionary page with Save. The Review tab's Today card shows "Seen on your widget today" with every word the widget showed. Milestone cards: Toku now adds up your reading and listening time for each language and marks 1, 10, 100 and 1,000 hours with a note after that session and a card under Review → Milestones that you can share. Also in this version: a word saved from your own video or audio says "Your files" instead of a file name; a pasted novel keeps its long dash (――); a long text reopens faster and keeps its analysis when you close it; while a long text is still loading, the next-page button waits instead of greying out; a Japanese learner's video list no longer leads with an English-captions-only video, and a video you watched shows under Continue.

In a podcast or your own audio file, tap Shadowing, then turn on "Shadow automatically." Each sentence plays, then the app goes quiet for exactly as long as it took, so you can say it back — then a soft tick, and the next sentence. Lock your phone and put it away; it keeps going with the screen off. You choose the pause ("Pause between sentences": as long as the sentence, 1.5 times as long, or 2 times as long) and how many times each sentence plays before moving on ("Repeat each sentence": once, twice, or three times). The Lock Screen shows where you are, like "Shadowing · 12 of 80," and reopening the episode picks up at the same sentence. This works in podcasts and your own audio files; videos keep the shadowing drill on screen. A long pasted text no longer freezes the app while it opens, and reopening one you've already opened is about twice as fast.

Your widget — on the Home Screen and the Lock Screen — is redrawn. It shows a word from something you listened to, with its reading, its meaning, and the name of the show it came from. Choose Japanese only, Chinese only, or both. You can grade the word right from the widget, without opening the app. Once a day, you can get "Try reading this" — a real sentence from your own podcast or story, with a word you're learning inside it. Tap it to read that sentence in the app, with the word marked. Brand-new readers get 30 words to start with on day one, so Review has something to show you right away. The Review tab now opens straight onto today's count, so you can see what's due at a glance. You can share any saved word as a picture — its reading, its meaning, and the sentence you saved it in — through your phone's own share sheet. The app uses far less memory while you browse podcasts and videos, because pictures are now sized to fit the space they're shown in. Tapping a word in a Chinese story, and opening a story with several chapters, are both instant now — no more waiting. Tapping a review reminder opens the app again, instead of nothing happening.

Getting started is faster. A few quick questions about what you'd like to read and how much you can read, and you're inside a real story, episode, or video — usually in under a minute. Home now reads as one clear list: Continue what you started, then Podcasts, Videos, and Stories. In each section, the shows and channels you follow come first, then picks for your level. Your shelf and your practice texts have moved to the Read tab. Following a YouTube channel works again — its new videos show up on the channel page and on Home. Dark mode is easier to read too. Continuing from before? Nothing changes for you, and you won't see the getting-started questions again. Adding a language you haven't set a level for yet? You'll get a one-time card on Home to set it.

Getting started is faster. A few quick questions about what you'd like to read and how much you can read, and you're inside a real story, episode, or video — usually in under a minute. Continuing from before? Nothing changes for you, and you won't see this again. Adding a language you haven't set a level for yet? You'll get a one-time card on Home to set it.

Stories are now one tap from Home. A new "Stories at your level" row shows stories picked for you, each one labeled with its own level — tap "See all" for the full list, sorted from a little easier to a little harder. Story pages now turn about 3 times faster, so even the longest stories flip smoothly. The Review tab now shows how much time you've spent reading and listening in each language you're learning — kept only on your phone.

A new Home, built to answer one question: what should you read, watch, or listen to next? Your first run now ends with a real shelf built for your level, not a demo — answer "How much can you read?" once per language and see it fill in. Home leads with your level right at the top, then three simple sections: "Picked for you" mixes real videos, podcast episodes, and stories together, each with a short reason it's there; "Your subscriptions" brings your followed podcasts and YouTube channels into one row; and a level-matched list of channels and shows lets you follow anything new with one tap. Free stories have arrived: 70 illustrated stories — 31 in Japanese, 19 in Simplified Chinese, 20 in Traditional Chinese — open from your shelf with the same word-tap reading as everything else. Search now runs in the language you're studying, so a Japanese search finds Japanese results. Follow any YouTube channel or website, not just the built-in list, and share a video, article, episode, or word as a link that opens straight in the app. Long pasted texts reopen much faster, and big ebooks no longer freeze the screen on import. With Definitions set to Chinese, far more Japanese words now answer in Chinese, grammar notes read in Chinese too, and Traditional Chinese uses more of Taiwan's own wording. With Definitions set to Japanese, the Chinese words readers tap most now often answer in Japanese too. Readers with their phone set to Japanese now see Japanese throughout the app's own menus. And a saved word now reliably stays saved, even if you close the app right away. A story now downloads only in the language you're studying. A few word readings were corrected.

With Definitions set to Chinese, a Japanese word you tap now almost never falls back to an English meaning. Chinese meanings grew from 71,271 to 239,017, more than three times as many. None were removed; about 1,000 that were already there were reworded, most of them shorter. Words readers had asked about by name now answer in Chinese, including プリントシール, 月見団子, お供え, 需要, 汽車, 技師 and 顔色. Measured on a test set of 104 Japanese texts, mostly older novels: taps that answer in Chinese rose from 93.4% to 94.8%, and taps that fall back to English dropped from 1.6% to 0.1%. Readers using Traditional Chinese now see Taiwan's own words, not mainland ones, on more than 1,000 meanings: 滑鼠 instead of 鼠標 for "mouse", 印表機 instead of 打印機 for "printer", and more. With the app's own language set to Chinese, more of the app is now in Chinese: the labels on a word card, the feedback form, the levels of the starter podcasts on the Watch tab, and the titles of the sample texts in a fresh install.

Many more Japanese words now carry Chinese meanings, including set phrases. English articles and web pages open with tappable words. Podcast word highlighting keeps pace with the voice. Smaller fixes.

Fixes for readers using Chinese, and for long pasted texts. • If your menus are in Chinese, the last English scraps on the word card are gone. • くらい ("about") and the で after it now open the right meaning. • A long pasted text with no blank lines now turns pages instead of being one endless page. • Chinese text with pinyin on starts a little larger, and you can set its size separately. • Connecting to AnkiMobile works again with the newest AnkiMobile.

More Japanese words explained in Chinese, and AI answers in your language. • If you read Japanese with Chinese meanings, about 4,700 more everyday words now show a Chinese meaning instead of English — 20,398 words in all. • "Why does it mean this?" answers now come back written in Chinese when your app is set to Chinese.

If you read Chinese, Toku now speaks your language. CHINESE, THROUGHOUT • The menus, buttons and settings are in Chinese — Simplified on a mainland phone, Traditional on a Taiwan or Hong Kong one. • Tap a Japanese word and the meaning comes back in Chinese. About 15,700 meanings are built in, chosen from the words readers actually meet in podcasts and articles, grammar particles included. On a real podcast transcript about nine taps in ten now answer in Chinese. A word we don't have yet still answers in English. • Grammar notes, example sentences and the character breakdown follow your language too. • A caution appears when a Japanese word isn't what a Chinese reader would expect: 手紙 is a letter, not toilet paper. • The Dictionary tab answers in your language as well, so searching a word and tapping it finally give the same answer. This Chinese is an early version. It has not yet been read from end to end by a native speaker, so some of it will read oddly. If a meaning looks wrong, tap "Report an error" on the word card — every report is read. NEW FOR EVERYONE • Setting Toku up is five short pages instead of eight, and the first one asks what language you speak. • Settings has been rebuilt: one screen, six plain groups, and every row shows its current setting underneath it. • A word card can open Apple's own dictionary entry, if you have downloaded one. • Thousands more example sentences, including 4,700 new short everyday ones. • Tapping a downloaded episode inside Settings now opens it, instead of doing nothing.

Your library follows you. Saved texts, saved words with their review progress, decks and your place in each text now sync between your iPhone and iPad through your own iCloud — private to your Apple ID, and switchable off in Settings. Your podcast favourites and followed shows come too, and now merge across devices instead of one replacing the other. Pull any list down to sync on demand. Toku tells you in plain words whether you are up to date. New in Settings: remove the copy Toku keeps in your iCloud, without touching anything on your iPhone. Plus the usual round of fixes.

Your reading follows you between your devices, and one tap now answers twice. • Your library follows you. Your texts, saved words, decks and how far you have read now appear on your other iPhones and iPads — start a story on your phone, carry on from the same line on your iPad. It uses your own iCloud, needs no account, and there is a switch in Settings if you would rather it stayed on one device. • One tap, both answers. Tap the star on a word and Toku now tells you what it means here and what the whole sentence says, together — one tap instead of two, and it still only uses one of your free explanations. • Your free explanations are counted reliably again, so a month's allowance can no longer slip away on its own.

Your own audio, and a way to ask why. • Open an audio file you already have. On Home, under "Your files", pick an MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC or audiobook file from Files. Tell Toku whether it's Japanese or Chinese, and the transcript is written on your phone while you listen — every word tappable, the word lighting up as it's spoken, sentence replay, shadowing, sleep timer, and it keeps playing when you lock the screen. Nothing is uploaded, and Toku never copies your file. • Bring your subtitles along. Pick the audio and its subtitle file together and the transcript is exact in a second. If the subtitles don't line up with the audio, Toku says so and uses them as hints instead. • Ask why. Tap the star on any word and Toku explains, in one plain sentence, why it means what it means in that sentence — in Japanese and Chinese, on articles, podcasts and videos. • Explanations show in blue, so you always know which words came from the AI and which came from the dictionary. • Save a word and its explanation stays with it: on the back of the review card, on the word card, and in a new "AI explanations" list. • Study this sentence: step out of an article or a podcast to see the word, the whole sentence with furigana, every explanation and the dictionary entry on one screen, then return to exactly where you were. • If Toku can't answer confidently, it says so — and that never costs you one of your free explanations. • Reading at the largest text sizes no longer overlaps lines.