jidoujisho vs LinguaCafe
jidoujisho
github.comLinguaCafe
github.comSide by side
| Figure | jidoujisho | LinguaCafe |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Language Immersion Apps | 8.3 (#5) | 7.9 (#13) |
| Purpose | jidoujisho is a mobile immersion language learning suite combining a video player, reading aid, dictionary and flashcard creation toolkit. | LinguaCafe is a self-hosted web app for learning foreign languages by reading and building vocabulary. |
| Support | The maker’s profile invites users to seek help through the project’s issue trackers, Discord or email. | The project lists GitHub, Discord, Reddit, and email as contact channels, and says the maker will try to help with update problems reported on GitHub or Discord. |
Plans
In their own words
jidoujisho
jidoujisho brings video playback, reading, dictionary lookup and flashcard creation into an Android language-learning app. It handles local media, YouTube videos, Jellyfin streams and direct URLs, with word lookup by tapping or dragging across subtitles and paragraphs. Readers can open offline books in the embedded ッツ Ebook Reader or read manga processed with Mokuro. For study cards, users can edit fields and export the current image and audio to AnkiDroid. Dictionary support covers Yomichan, Migaku and ABBYY Lingvo DSL formats; dictionary data is not bundled, and Yomichan structured-content dictionaries are unsupported. Listed services include ChatGPT, Bing image search, Forvo, JapanesePod101 audio search, and example sentences from Massif, Tatoeba and ImmersionKit. WebSocket support allows use with texthookers. Japanese and English are officially supported; other languages depend on dictionary format and search support. jidoujisho is free and open source under GPL-3.0. It requires Android 7.0 or later and AnkiDroid. External subtitles include SRT, ASS and SSA, but not image-based PGS.
LinguaCafe
LinguaCafe is a free, open-source web app for learning languages through reading and vocabulary review. It is self-hosted, so users can run it on their own machine or private web server and control their data. Reading material can come from plain text, text files, ebooks, YouTube subtitles, subtitle files, Jellyfin external subtitles, or webpages. Readers can look up words and phrases, save translations, mark items as known or ignored, and track vocabulary by learning level. Spaced-repetition reviews follow an approach similar to the Leitner system, and highlighted cards can be exported to Anki or other SRS software. DeepL translations are available for lookups when enabled. Text-to-speech uses browser SpeechSynthesis, with voices dependent on the browser. The project lists many supported languages and supports Progressive Web App installation on mobile devices; it works in browsers on screens at least 340 pixels wide. Setup uses Docker Compose. The project supports x64, with an additional step for Apple silicon, but other Armv8 devices such as Raspberry Pi 3 and newer do not currently work. One user per server is supported.