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How to read Japanese on an Android tablet without switching apps

A tablet is a great way to read Japanese: a big screen, a stylus, every book in one place. The weak spot is looking things up. Each time you leave the page you lose your place, and with it a little of the flow.

By Mael Gerhard · updated 3 October 2026

What to read

Good material for a tablet:

• E-books in Kindle or Google Play Books. The text can be selected.
• Aozora Bunko, free classics in the public domain, such as Natsume Sōseki's 吾輩は猫である.
• NHK News Web Easy: short news articles in simple Japanese, with furigana.
• PDFs of textbooks and workbooks.
• Manga, where the text sits inside the pictures.
• Any website in the browser.

Match the tool to the kind of text

• Text you can select (e-books, web pages, most PDFs): use the selection menu and send the word or sentence to your dictionary.
• Text you can't select (manga, games, screenshots, photos): read it off the screen with text recognition.
• A character you can't read: draw it and pick it from the candidates.
• A whole sentence: send it to a translator, ideally one that also shows furigana.

Stop switching apps

The usual dictionary workflow is: leave the book, open the dictionary, type, read, go back, find your place. A dictionary that floats over the page cuts that to a tap. Android allows this once you grant “Display over other apps” in the system settings; a good app explains why before it sends you there.

The advantage over split-screen is that your book keeps the whole display, and the lookup appears only when you ask for it.

Set it up so it stays

• Use the stylus for drawing characters; it is faster and more accurate than a fingertip.
• Move the floating button to the edge where it covers no text.
• Battery use: some manufacturers close overlay apps to save power. If the button disappears, set the app's battery use to “unrestricted” in the system settings and lock it in the recent-apps view.
• Raise the text size in your reading app. Dense kanji are easier to tell apart when they are larger.

Turn what you read into practice

Lookups are only the start. Save the words that stopped you as flashcards, and review them in the evening, a few minutes at a time. Words you met in a story you cared about stick far better than a list from a textbook.

More guides:
Look up a kanji you can't read Understand grammar while reading