Ganbatte Shadowing Alternatives: What to Use Now the App Is Gone

Ganbatte Shadowing, the free shadowing app from the International University of Japan (IUJ), was discontinued in mid-March 2026, and it is no longer listed on the App Store. If you used it, the closest replacements depend on what you used it for: structured dialogues with a script you can hide (Tunanuki or the Shadowing: Let's Speak Japanese! books), recording yourself and getting feedback (Kage Japanese Shadowing), shadowing your own videos and podcasts (Miraa), or checking your pitch against a model (Praat, a free desktop tool). No single app replaces everything Ganbatte did, so this guide breaks it down feature by feature.

I'm Malik, the founder of Tunanuki, so I'm not neutral here. I've tried to be fair about where other tools are a better fit than mine, including the features Ganbatte had that Tunanuki doesn't.

What happened to Ganbatte Shadowing?

Ganbatte Shadowing was built by the Japanese Language Program at IUJ and released for free on iPhone and Android in 2016, as part of the university's Top Global University Project. Together with its sister app, Ganbatte Kana, it was one of the few free tools designed specifically for Japanese shadowing.

IUJ's notice says both apps "will be discontinued in mid-March 2026." As of October 2026, Ganbatte Shadowing no longer appears in the App Store in the US or Japan. If you still have it installed, assume it won't be updated and back up any recordings you want to keep.

What Ganbatte Shadowing did well

It's worth being clear about what you're replacing. According to IUJ's own guide to the app, Ganbatte Shadowing offered:

• Graded material: 48 beginner dialogues, 14 intermediate items (8 dialogues and 6 monologues) and 8 advanced items (4 dialogues and 4 monologues).
• Practice settings: show or hide the Japanese text, an English translation, audio at normal speed or 0.7x, and playback either in one go or split at punctuation.
• Several shadowing types explained: silent shadowing, mumbling, prosody shadowing, content shadowing, parallel reading, repeating and recitation.
• Pitch and waveform comparison: after each attempt, it drew your pitch curve and waveform under the model speaker's so you could compare them.
• A portfolio: every recording was saved with the date and the settings you used.
• Completely free.

That last point matters: there is no free app today that does all of this. The good news is that each piece has a solid replacement.

Quick comparison

The alternatives

Tunanuki: structured dialogues with professional voice actors

Tunanuki is a web app built around one thing: daily Japanese shadowing with short dialogues. Every dialogue is recorded by professional Japanese voice actors, never AI voices, and each lesson follows three steps: listen, shadow with the script, then shadow with the script hidden. You can replay any single line, slow the audio down to 0.75x, and toggle furigana and the English translation.

Closest to Ganbatte in: short graded dialogues, show/hide script, slower playback, translation.

Where it falls short of Ganbatte:

• No pitch curve or waveform comparison.
• It doesn't record your voice yet, so you'll need your phone's voice recorder for that.
• Only Level 1 (beginner, around N5) is available during the beta, and later levels will be paid. Level 1 stays free.
• It runs in your browser on desktop or mobile, rather than as an installed app.

Best for: beginners who used Ganbatte's beginner dialogues and want a structured daily routine. If you're new to the method, the complete guide to Japanese shadowing explains the three steps in detail.

New Shadowing: Let's Speak Japanese! (Kurosio books)

The Shadowing: Let's Speak Japanese! series is the classic shadowing textbook series, since revised as New Shadowing. There is a Beginner to Intermediate edition and an Intermediate to Advanced edition (aimed at roughly JLPT N3 to N1), with audio you download from the publisher.

Closest to Ganbatte in: graded material all the way to advanced level, including the kind of longer speech that Ganbatte's monologues covered.

Where it falls short: it's a book with audio tracks, so replaying one line means scrubbing through a track, and there's no recording or tracking.

Best for: intermediate and advanced learners who used Ganbatte's monologues and higher levels.

Kage Japanese Shadowing: record yourself and get feedback

Kage is a new iPhone app, released in 2026. It lets you shadow short Japanese texts, record your voice and review feedback on your pronunciation, with JLPT filters from N5 to N1 and guided scenario conversations. The core features are free, and a paid Pro tier adds higher daily limits, "premium Japanese audio" and more pronunciation review.

Closest to Ganbatte in: recording yourself and reviewing the result.

Worth checking: its store listing describes "natural Japanese audio" but doesn't say whether the voices are recorded by people or synthesized. For shadowing, that matters: you copy whatever pitch and rhythm you hear. Listen to a few samples before you commit.

Best for: learners who mostly used Ganbatte's record-and-compare loop.

Miraa: shadow your own videos and podcasts

Miraa takes the opposite approach: instead of providing lessons, it transcribes videos and podcasts you choose, and lets you practice them line by line with a listen, understand, imitate and compare loop. It covers several languages, including Japanese, and uses AI for transcription and explanations.

Closest to Ganbatte in: sentence-by-sentence practice with the script.

Where it differs: there is no graded curriculum, so you have to choose material at the right level yourself. Transcripts are generated by AI, so expect occasional mistakes.

Best for: intermediate learners who want to shadow anime, dramas, YouTube or podcasts.

Praat: the free way to see your pitch curve

Ganbatte's most unusual feature was drawing your pitch curve under the model's. None of the apps in this guide does this, but you can do it yourself with Praat, a free speech-analysis program used by phoneticians. Open the model audio and your recording side by side, and look at the pitch track (the blue line) for each.

It's not as convenient as Ganbatte, and Praat has a learning curve. But if pitch accent is what you were working on, it's the most precise free option.

Best for: anyone focused on pitch accent, especially at intermediate level.

How to rebuild your Ganbatte routine

If you want something close to the Ganbatte experience without waiting for a single app to replace it:

1. Pick your daily material. Beginners: Tunanuki's Level 1 dialogues. Intermediate and advanced: the New Shadowing books, or your own content in Miraa.
2. Follow the same progression Ganbatte taught. Listen first, shadow with the script, then shadow without it. Research on shadowing suggests beginners get the most from it as a listening exercise first, before focusing on speaking. More on that in the science behind shadowing.
3. Record yourself once a week. Use Kage, or simply your phone's voice recorder, and compare your recording with the model. Ganbatte's portfolio did this automatically; now you'll need to keep the habit yourself.
4. Check your pitch occasionally. Once a month, put a model line and your recording into Praat and compare the curves.
5. Keep sessions short and daily. Fifteen to twenty minutes a day beats an hour once a week.

Frequently asked questions

Is Ganbatte Shadowing still available?

No. IUJ announced that Ganbatte Shadowing and Ganbatte Kana would be discontinued in mid-March 2026, and Ganbatte Shadowing is no longer listed on the App Store. An installed copy may keep opening for a while, but it won't receive updates.

Is there a free alternative to Ganbatte Shadowing?

Partly. Tunanuki's Level 1 is free, Kage's core features are free, Miraa is free to start, and Praat is completely free. None of them is free for everything Ganbatte offered, so the closest free setup is to combine two of them.

What is the best Ganbatte Shadowing alternative for beginners?

For beginners, the closest replacement for Ganbatte's 48 beginner dialogues is a structured course of short dialogues with a script you can hide, such as Tunanuki's Level 1. Pair it with weekly self-recordings on your phone.

Which alternative shows your pitch accent like Ganbatte did?

None of the apps in this guide draws your pitch curve next to a model's. The free desktop program Praat can show both pitch tracks side by side, which is the closest replacement.

Do AI voices work for shadowing?

They're not ideal. Shadowing means copying pronunciation, pitch and rhythm exactly, so the model voice should be a real native speaker. When you choose a replacement, check whether its audio is recorded by people or generated.

Sources

• International University of Japan, Japanese Language Program: notice of app service termination and Ganbatte Shadowing feature guide (PDF, Japanese).
• IUJ: announcement of the Ganbatte Shadowing release (2016).
• App Store listings for Kage Japanese Shadowing and Miraa, checked October 2026.
• Praat, University of Amsterdam.

Last checked: October 22, 2026.