OCAT: Learn to Speak Japanese with AI
OCAT is an app that helps you quickly improve your spoken Japanese, Chinese, Cantonese, French, German, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Vietnamese, and Thai through conversations with AI.
You can easily collect authentic sentences with pronunciation guides, audio playback, and bookmarks to quickly build your own everyday sentence bank. Play them on repeat, train your ears, and naturally speak with confidence.
Learning full sentences is more effective than memorizing single words!
The name "OCAT" comes from the Japanese phrase "おしえて", meaning "please teach me."
Key Features
- Easy Input - Want to know how to say "xxx" in Japanese? Just type it in your native language, and AI will instantly show you natural sentences.
- Interactive Learning - Tap sentences to hear audio, and save them into your custom folders.
- All-in-One - Beyond saving foreign-language sentences for listening practice, OCAT also supports Topic Conversation Mode, Shadowing Practice, vertical layout in collections, sentence-bank collections, sleep timer playback, and more.
- Ultra-realistic Voice - OCAT includes ultra-realistic reading voices that help learners practice shadowing more effectively and develop better intonation. See the demo for details.
- Japanese Pronunciation - All Japanese sentences include easy-to-read hiragana pronunciation guides.
- Personalized Collections - Create folders to easily organize and manage your favorite sentences.
- Easy Review - Play your saved sentences repeatedly in the background. Adjust playback intervals, speed, and translations to practice anytime.
- Context Recall - Quickly return to the original conversation for each saved sentence to remember your learning experience.
Gather your own personal sentence bank, and naturally learn to speak in daily life, just as effortlessly as a child!
OCAT vs ChatGPT
| Highlights | OCAT | ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese pronunciation | Displays native furigana phonetics for every sentence | Not supported; only plain bracket notes |
| Sentence bookmarking | Bookmark any sentence with one tap | Cannot bookmark sentences |
| Audio playback | Loop saved sentences with the built-in player | No sentence playback |
| Conversation context | Jump back to the original AI chat beside each saved line | No link back to source chats |
| Background listening | Play sentence decks in the background for listening drills | No background playback |
| Prompt simplicity | Type the phrase only—OCAT asks “How do you say xx in Japanese?” for you | Must type the full question “How do you say xx in Japanese?” |
| Test mode | Built-in Test mode checks your mastery | No test mode |
| Pronunciation accuracy | Expertly tuned AI pronunciation with outstanding accuracy | Less specialized pronunciation support |
| Sleep mode | Sleep mode automatically pauses playback | No sleep mode |
| Model options | Switch between multiple cutting-edge models | Limited to OpenAI models |
| Monthly cost | Roughly 20% of ChatGPT’s monthly fee (see in-app pricing) | Expensive USD $20/month subscription |
| Learning prompts | Preloaded language-learning prompts ready out of the box | No language-learning presets |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is OCAT?
OCAT is an AI language-learning app focused on spoken Japanese. Type what you want to say in your own language, and the AI replies with natural Japanese sentences that come with furigana, playable audio, and one-tap saving. Your saved sentences then turn into listening loops, shadowing practice, tests, and review, until you can say them without thinking. The name comes from the Japanese おしえて (oshiete), “please teach me.”
Is OCAT free?
OCAT is free to download and browse, and first-time users get a limited free trial. AI conversation and voice playback are subscription features, priced at roughly 20% of a ChatGPT monthly subscription; the price shown in the app is authoritative.
How is OCAT different from ChatGPT or other general AI chatbots?
OCAT is built for learning a language, not for general chat. You only type the phrase you want to say; Japanese readings appear as real furigana above the kanji instead of in brackets; any sentence can be saved, looped, and played in the background, and each saved sentence links back to its original conversation. Test mode, shadowing, and review scheduling are built in, and you can switch between several AI models. The table above compares the two point by point.
Which languages can I learn, and which interface languages are available?
Japanese is the main focus, with furigana on every sentence. You can also learn English (with an American or British accent), Mandarin Chinese (with pinyin), Cantonese (with Jyutping), Korean, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, and Thai. The app interface is available in 18 languages: English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Malay, Filipino, Nepali, Burmese, and Turkish.
How accurate is OCAT’s furigana, and how does it work?
Every Japanese sentence passes through three AI systems: the AI reply gives readings in parentheses, a second AI annotates the whole sentence with furigana, and a third AI generates the audio when you play it. Because the three can be checked against each other, it is very unlikely that all of them are wrong at once. By default, furigana sits on the kanji the way Japanese books print it, and you can switch to word-based (morphological) furigana in Settings → Experimental Options. If you still spot a mistake, long-press the saved sentence to correct it. Read more in About Japanese furigana accuracy.
Can OCAT work as a Japanese repeat player, looping audio in the background or on the lock screen?
Yes. Save sentences to a collection, or paste a whole Japanese passage through Manual Add Collection and let OCAT split it into sentences. Tap play and the list loops endlessly, even after you switch apps or lock the screen, with controls on the lock screen and in notifications. You can set how many times each sentence repeats, the pause between repeats and before the next sentence, the speed of each pass, slower and quieter second passes for shadowing, and translation playback; there is also a sleep timer and a home screen widget. See our guide to OCAT as a Japanese repeat player.