Learn Japanese by actually talking

Most apps teach you words. Penko Vox gives you people to use them with. Walk up to anyone in a retro island world and say whatever you want in Japanese, order coffee in a café, call a friend by voice, and get gentle corrections as you go, all on your own computer, fully offline.

It's a safe place to make mistakes: no audience, no judgment, no time limit, and no subscription.

Kotoba Islands: a world that talks back

• Talk to anyone, in your own words. There are no dialogue menus. Every resident answers what you actually say, and they remember you, your visits and what you've told them.
  
• Live a little life in Japanese. Shop at the konbini, take on odd jobs for yen, befriend animals, and collect stamps across towns, routes, beaches and shrines.
  
• Interact with anything. Buy a drink from a vending machine, sit at a kotatsu or pet a rabbit by typing what you want to do, text-adventure style.

38 everyday scenarios, from N5 to N1

Order at a café, get lost at the station, pay at the convenience store, shop for clothes, call in sick. Each scene has a character with a personality and a goal to reach. Hand over real yen and get your change, use the items in your pocket, and follow the scene as it moves forward. Build your own scenarios too: choose the role, the place and the topic.

Voice calls

Speak out loud and the character answers in their own voice. Pause, think, carry on, or interrupt them mid-sentence, just like a real phone call. Speech recognition runs on your computer, so your voice never leaves it.

Gentle corrections, never a lecture

When you make a mistake, the character naturally rephrases what you meant, the way a good teacher does, and the conversation keeps going. Want to know why? One tap shows the explanation, and Penko Sensei is always there for questions in your own language.

Read, write and remember

• Tap any word for its reading, meaning and audio from the built-in offline dictionary, and save it with one tap.
  
• Furigana and romaji can be switched on or off, so complete beginners can start from day one.
  
• Stroke practice for hiragana, katakana, beginner kanji and words, with animated stroke order.
  
• Study Hub with modern spaced repetition (FSRS) and auto-graded exercises, with no daily caps. Study as much as you want.

Private by design

The AI tutor, speech recognition and voices all run locally. There are no accounts, no telemetry and no cloud. Your conversations and recordings stay on your machine. With no servers, there are no token limits and no monthly fees: buy once, practise as much as you like.

Play your way

• Interface in 8 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese.
  
• Mouse and keyboard, touch, or controller, including a phone-style flick keyboard for typing kana.
  
• Runs on Windows, Linux and Steam Deck.

Good to know

• Penko Vox uses generative AI. It's a strong practice partner, but it can make mistakes, especially at N2 to N1. It's a learning aid, not a replacement for a teacher or an official exam.
  
• The AI runs on your own hardware: a CPU with AVX2 and 16 GB of RAM are required, and an SSD and a dedicated GPU give faster replies. The first reply after launch takes a moment while the model loads.