LingQ vs Migaku

LingQ vs Migaku comes down to where you spend your time. LingQ is a reading-first app with a big library, 50+ languages and detailed tracking of every word you know. Migaku is a video-first toolkit: it adds clickable subtitles to Netflix, YouTube and other sites, and turns sentences into rich flashcards in one click. If you read, pick LingQ. If you watch and mine sentences, especially in Japanese, Chinese or Korean, pick Migaku.

Both come from the same comprehensible-input school of thought, and both work. They just start from opposite ends.

LingQ vs Migaku at a glance

Prices are US prices from official pages in October 2026. Both change over time, and Migaku has discounted its lifetime plan during sales.

Sources: LingQ free vs Premium, LingQ homepage, Migaku pricing, Migaku FAQ.

Languages

This settles it for many people.

Migaku supports 11 languages: Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Korean, Spanish, English, German, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Italian and French. One subscription covers all of them, though its tools and courses are deepest for Japanese and Chinese.

LingQ supports more than 50, including many that most apps skip. If you’re learning Swedish, Greek, Ukrainian or Persian, Migaku isn’t an option, and LingQ is.

Price

Migaku is cheaper month to month: Standard is $10 a month against LingQ Premium’s $14.99. On yearly plans they’re close: $96 for Migaku Standard, about $120 for LingQ Premium. LingQ’s 24-month plan brings it down to $8.99 a month, paid upfront.

The real difference is in how you try them.

• LingQ has a permanent free plan, but it’s tiny: 20 saved words in total and 5 imported lessons. It shows you how the reader works, and that’s all.
• Migaku has no free plan. You get a free trial (10 days at the time of writing), then pay. Migaku offers a full refund within 14 days of purchase.

Migaku also sells a lifetime plan at $499. At the time of writing it includes Early Access features. If you know you’ll use it for years, it can pay off. It’s been discounted during sales, so if you’re considering it, it may be worth waiting for one.

Reading

LingQ is built for it

Reading is LingQ’s home turf. You open a lesson, and every word has a status. New words are blue. Saved words are yellow and fade as you learn them. Known words are plain. When you turn a page, the new words you didn’t tap become known, and your known-word total climbs.

You can import nearly anything: web pages through the LingQ Importer extension (Chrome, Firefox and Safari), ebooks, podcasts, YouTube and Netflix. Long texts are split into lessons. And the library means you can always find something at your level.

Migaku reads the web

Migaku’s browser extension works on ordinary web pages, too. Click a word for a definition and an AI sentence breakdown, then make a card. It estimates how hard a page will be from what you know. On mobile, the app has a built-in browser and OCR, so you can look up words in a printed textbook.

But Migaku has no lesson library in LingQ’s sense, and the experience is designed around grabbing sentences rather than reading long texts from start to finish.

For long-form reading, LingQ wins clearly. If you want to read a novel, LingQ (or another dedicated reader) will feel more natural. See how to import EPUB books for language learning for options.

Video and listening

Migaku is built for it

This is Migaku’s home turf. Its extension adds clickable subtitles to Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, Rakuten Viki and Animelon, and it plays video files you own. Click any word in the subtitle to look it up. Click again to make a card that includes the sentence, the audio clip and a screenshot from the scene.

For anime and drama learners, that’s a huge deal. Cards with the actor’s voice and the scene image are far more memorable than a word and a translation.

LingQ imports video

LingQ can import YouTube videos and Netflix subtitles, but it turns them into lessons: you read the transcript with the audio, rather than watching with clickable subtitles. That’s good for intensive study of a clip, and it’s different from watching a show.

LingQ’s library lessons usually come with recorded audio, and playlists let you listen on the go. That’s real strength for listening practice, just not for video.

For video, Migaku wins clearly. We cover more of this in learning from Netflix and YouTube subtitles.

Flashcards and review

Here the philosophies differ most.

Migaku treats cards as a core part of the method. Its FAQ recommends cards built from sentences with a single unknown word, and a pace of about 10 new cards a day. Cards are rich, with audio and images, and you review them in Migaku Memory on the web or in the app. If you’ve done Refold-style sentence mining, this will feel familiar.

LingQ treats review as support. Every word you save becomes a card with its sentence, and you can review it with multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank or dictation. But LingQ’s stance is that reading is the main event and review is a top-up. Its own review admits that if you save words quickly, the queue can outgrow your time.

Neither is right. If you like making and reviewing cards, Migaku’s are better. If you’d rather spend almost all your time reading, LingQ asks less of you.

Setup and learning curve

LingQ works the moment you sign up. Pick a language, open a lesson and start tapping. There’s a lot of interface to learn later, but the first session is easy.

Migaku asks more. You install a browser extension (designed for Chrome) and the mobile app, set up your language, and learn the card workflow. It’s not hard, but the first hour is more setup than study. In return you get a toolkit that works across many sites.

For beginners, Migaku also offers structured courses: Fundamentals (writing system and pronunciation), Academy (roughly the first 1,500–1,700 words and a few hundred grammar points, depending on the language) and a Kanji course for Japanese. LingQ’s library includes beginner lessons, but no course in the same sense.

Who should pick LingQ

• You learn mainly by reading, and want long-form texts and books.
• Your language isn’t one of Migaku’s 11.
• You want a library that always has something at your level.
• You’re motivated by a known-word count.

Who should pick Migaku

• You learn mainly by watching: Netflix, YouTube, anime, drama.
• You’re learning Japanese, Chinese or Korean, where its tools are most developed.
• You like sentence mining and want rich cards with audio and screenshots.
• You’d like a structured course alongside native media.

Can you use both?

Plenty of people do: LingQ for reading, Migaku for video. The catch is that your known words don’t move between them, so each app’s idea of what you know will be incomplete. If you go this way, pick one as your main flashcard home so you’re not reviewing the same word in two places.

Where Lumo fits

We’re building Lumo, which isn’t available yet, so take this as context rather than a recommendation. It’s closer to LingQ in spirit: reading first, with every word tracked and a difficulty label on each text. It also covers YouTube with an interactive transcript and dual subtitles, plus audio and video files with SRT or VTT subtitles, and saved words become FSRS flashcards. It has no Netflix support or browser extension, so for streaming-heavy learners Migaku remains the better fit.

The verdict

LingQ is the better reading app, covers far more languages and has the library. Migaku is the better video and sentence-mining tool, especially for East Asian languages. Pick the one that matches the hours you’ll actually put in, because the input itself is what matters. The research on incidental vocabulary learning, such as Pigada and Schmitt’s 2006 case study in Reading in a Foreign Language, points to lots of encounters with words in context. In that study, a month of extensive reading improved one learner’s knowledge of 65% of the 133 target words in some way. Both apps can give you that.

FAQ

Is Migaku better than LingQ for Japanese?

For most Japanese learners who watch anime, drama or YouTube, yes. Migaku’s subtitle tools, sentence cards and Kanji course give Japanese learners a lot in one place. If you mainly want to read Japanese novels and articles, LingQ or a dedicated reader like Satori Reader may suit you better.

Does Migaku have a free version?

No. Migaku offers a free trial (10 days at the time of writing) and a full refund within 14 days of purchase, but no permanent free tier. Standard costs $10 a month or $96 a year in the US.

Does LingQ work with Netflix?

Yes, through import. LingQ turns Netflix and YouTube content into lessons, so you read the subtitles as a text with the audio. If you want clickable subtitles while you watch in the player itself, Migaku and Language Reactor are built for that.

Which is cheaper, LingQ or Migaku?

Migaku is cheaper monthly ($10 against $14.99) and slightly cheaper yearly ($96 against about $120). LingQ’s 24-month plan ($8.99 a month) and Migaku’s $499 lifetime plan change the math if you’re committing long term.