Migaku tracks the words in the episode. Immersed tracks the hours in your day.
Migaku is a browser extension and phone app that makes native content readable: click a word in Netflix or YouTube subtitles, see what it means, turn the sentence into a flashcard, and watch your known words grow. Immersed is a language immersion tracker and planner: a free plan built from your answers, then a daily timeline for the shows, podcasts and books you learn from, with reports of your hours. They do different jobs, and most learners who use one would do well with both.
Free. About two minutes. No account, no card.
I worked at Migaku, and Immersed has a partnership with Migaku: if you sign up for Migaku through Immersed's link, you get an extra month of Migaku free and 30 days of Immersed Pro. Migaku links in Immersed are affiliate links: I earn a small share while you stay subscribed, at no extra cost to you.
The short version
Checked October 24, 2026.
Something out of date? Tell me.
Migaku is for the minutes you spend inside a piece of content: looking words up, mining sentences, reviewing cards, and seeing how hard a show will be for you based on the words you know.
Immersed is for the day around that content: how many hours you have, where they fit, what you did with them (watching, passive listening, reading, SRS), how much you understood, and whether you kept showing up.
If you're choosing one, pick by the problem you have. Can't follow what you watch? Start with Migaku. Can't find the time, or can't tell if you're putting in enough of it? Start with Immersed. I worked at Migaku, so read this page knowing that.
Migaku shows what your hours turned into, in known words. Immersed shows what they were made of: which of nine activities, how much you understood, which shows and channels. Your 1,000 hours and someone else's 1,000 aren't the same.
01Two different jobs
Migaku counts words. Immersed counts hours.
Migaku sits on top of what you watch and read. Every word gets one of five statuses (Unknown, Learning, Known, Ignored, Tracked), and Migaku uses your known words to suggest what to learn next and to estimate how difficult a show or video will be for you. It can even hide subtitles except on lines that contain a word you don't know.
Immersed doesn't look inside the content. It has no subtitles, no dictionary and no flashcards, and its extension, Immersed for Chrome, is a timer and a save button rather than a reader. What it tracks is your time: a session for each thing you do, in one of nine activities, with a rating of how much you understood. Over weeks that becomes your hours by activity, your streak and your comprehension over time.
- Migaku: known words, word statuses, flashcards, difficulty of a piece of content
- Immersed: hours by activity, comprehension you rate yourself, the days you showed up
- Neither one replaces the other
02A day with both
Plan it in Immersed, watch it with Migaku, log it in Immersed.
Start in Immersed. Your timeline shows the day from Wake up to Wind down, with immersion planned into the gaps: an episode after dinner, a podcast on the commute, ten minutes of cards before bed. When the episode starts, start a session as Active Subtitles and watch with Migaku the way you always do, clicking words and making cards.
On a computer, the video plays on YouTube's own page so Migaku can run there. With Immersed for Chrome, press Immerse on the YouTube watch page and the session starts while Migaku sits on the same page. Without the extension, set Immersed to Open it on YouTube (Settings, When you tap Get Immersed on a video): the timer starts and the video opens on YouTube. On a phone, the full-screen session has a Copy link button, so you can paste the video into Migaku.
When you stop, the session lands on your timeline. Rate how much you understood and add a note if you like ("first episode I followed without pausing much"). Your Migaku review time can be its own session too, logged as SRS, so your reports show how your hours split between watching and cards.
- Active Subtitles for an episode with Migaku open
- SRS for Migaku Memory or Anki reviews
- Passive Listening for the audio you replay away from the screen
03Away from the screen
The hours Migaku never sees.
A lot of immersion happens where no extension can reach: a podcast while you cook, an audiobook at the gym, a novel on paper, a conversation with a tutor. Migaku's phone camera can make printed text interactive, which is clever, but most of that time still leaves no trace unless you record it.
Immersed is built for those hours. The blueprint shows your Hidden Immersion Time (the commute, the dishes, the gym) and the minutes each one adds. On the timeline you can make the play button default to Passive Listening, so the walk to work is one tap. Forgot to press play? Log the session afterward with the start and stop time.
04Looking back
Two kinds of proof that you are getting better.
Migaku's proof is the word count: more words known, and shows that Migaku rates as easier for you than they used to be. That is real progress, and it's motivating to watch.
Immersed's proof is the record: time immersed by week, month and year, your daily average, a consistency grid with streaks, hours stacked by activity, comprehension over time and links back to the shows and channels you spent the most hours with. Export it as a PDF, Excel or CSV, or share a report link.
Put the two side by side and you can see both what you put in and what it turned into. If your known words jumped in a month where most of your hours were Active Subtitles at the right level, that's the mix to keep. Hours alone wouldn't tell you that.
Side by side · checked October 24, 2026
Immersed and Migaku, feature by feature.
Inside the content
Click a word in subtitles for its meaning
Immersed · No
Migaku · Yes, with audio, images and AI explanations
One-click flashcards with screenshot and audio
Immersed · No
Migaku · Yes
Known-word tracking
Immersed · No
Migaku · Five word statuses, from Unknown to Known
Difficulty of a show for your level
Immersed · No
Migaku · Yes, from your known words
Spaced repetition
Immersed · No, log your reviews as SRS
Migaku · Migaku Memory, plus Anki export
Planning your day
A plan built from your time and goals
Immersed · Free blueprint in about two minutes
Migaku · Not on its feature list
Daily timeline with reminders
Immersed · Yes, Wake up to Wind down
Migaku · Not on its feature list
Where passive listening fits
Immersed · Hidden Immersion Time on the blueprint
Migaku · Not on its feature list
What to watch, listen to and read
Immersed · Immersion Library and Discover
Migaku · Works on what you bring
Tracking and reports
Hours by activity, on and off screen
Immersed · Nine activities, timer or log after
Migaku · Not on its feature list
Top shows and channels
Immersed · Listed in your reports, with links
Migaku · Not on its feature list
Comprehension
Immersed · You rate each session; charted over time
Migaku · Estimated from known words
Streaks and consistency grid
Immersed · Yes
Migaku · Not on its feature list
Export
Immersed · PDF, Excel, CSV, share links
Migaku · Cards export to Anki
Apps and price
Browser extension
Immersed · Yes, Immersed for Chrome (unlisted; saving and sessions are Pro)
Migaku · Chrome, on desktop
Phone
Immersed · Web app that installs, with Copy link for Migaku; Android app in testing for Google Play
Migaku · iOS and Android apps
Languages
Immersed · Any; Library in 22, hand-picked Toolkit in 11
Migaku · 11 languages
Price
Immersed · $60 a year or $9.99 a month
Migaku · From $10 a month or $96 a year (US web)
Credit where it's due
Both are good. At different things.
What Migaku does well
- Makes Netflix, YouTube, Disney+ and Rakuten Viki readable at any level, with a click on any word
- One-click flashcards that carry the sentence, a screenshot and the audio from that moment
- Known-word tracking with five statuses, so your vocabulary count reflects what you actually know
- Tells you how hard a show will be before you start it, based on the words you know
- Phone camera text recognition for books, menus and signs
- Its own spaced repetition, Migaku Memory, plus Anki export for people who already live in Anki
- Beginner flashcard courses of about 1,500 high-frequency words for Japanese, Mandarin and Korean
- One subscription covers all 11 of its languages
What Immersed does that Migaku doesn't
- Builds you a plan first, from your time, your goals and your level
- Puts that plan on a daily timeline you can tick off, with reminders
- Tracks every kind of immersion, including podcasts, books and conversations away from the screen
- Asks how much you understood after each session and charts it over time
- Shows consistency: the days you showed up, your streak, your daily average
- Suggests what to watch, listen to and read, and gives you a feed in your language that counts as immersion
- Starts a session in one click on YouTube's watch page with Immersed for Chrome, next to Migaku
Pick Migaku if
- You can't follow native content yet and need help with every other word
- You learn by sentence mining and want cards made in one click with the audio and a screenshot
- You want an exact count of the words you know, and content picked to match it
- You study Japanese, Mandarin or Korean from zero and want a frequency-based starter deck
- You do most of your immersion on Netflix and YouTube on a computer
Pick Immersed if
- You understand enough to watch, but struggle to find the time or stick with it
- You want a plan for your day and a record of your hours, not just a word count
- A lot of your immersion is podcasts, audiobooks or reading on paper
- You want to see comprehension, hours and streaks in one report
- You study a language Migaku does not support yet
Use both, or move over
Use them together. That is what they are for.
The simplest setup: Migaku stays your tool inside the content, and Immersed becomes the plan and the record around it. Plan your episodes and review time on the Immersed timeline. When you sit down to watch, start a session as Active Subtitles and open Migaku as normal. Log your Migaku Memory or Anki reviews as SRS. Rate how much you understood each time.
After a month you have two views of the same progress: Migaku's known words going up, and Immersed's hours, streak and comprehension next to them. Immersed's free blueprint already puts Migaku first in its Toolkit, as the helper to use while you watch, wherever Migaku supports your language, with Migaku Memory as the alternative to Anki on the flashcard card. If you sign up through that link you get 30 days of Immersed Pro to try the pair.
Pricing · checked October 24, 2026
What each one costs.
Immersed
- Free: the blueprint for one language (with the Toolkit, Library picks and the Fluency Checklist's Foundations), the listening games in 12 languages with their leaderboards, Aim Runner, the Discord and the sample app. A free account also gets the Fitting Room's day-one outfits, Hour Marks and badges from game time.
- Immersed Pro: $60 a year (starts with a free week, about $5 a month) or $9.99 a month. Timeline, sessions, Discover, Library, Growth and reports, more languages.
- Sign up for Migaku through the link in Immersed and you get two things: an extra month of Migaku free, and 30 days of Immersed Pro with no card needed. Subscriptions bought in the App Store can't be matched.
Migaku
- Standard: $10 a month or $96 a year.
- Early Access (new features first): $15 a month or $144 a year.
- Lifetime: $499 once.
- Prices are what migaku.com showed a US visitor on 2026-10-24. Migaku adjusts prices by country and runs frequent sales, and the iPhone app charges more (Standard from $14). Its Chrome Web Store listing mentions a 10-day free trial with no card.
Migaku needs a paid plan for its features, so for most people the real question is not Migaku or Immersed. If you already pay for Migaku, signing up through Immersed's link gives you a month of Immersed to see whether tracking your hours helps you.
FAQ
Questions people ask.
Is Immersed a Migaku alternative?+
Not really. Migaku helps you understand content while you watch it: lookups, flashcards, known words. Immersed plans and tracks your immersion hours across the day and shows you reports. Immersed has no subtitle tool, dictionary or flashcards (its Chrome extension saves videos and times sessions), so if that's what you need, you need Migaku or something like it.
Does Migaku track immersion time?+
Migaku's own feature pages and store listings focus on words, flashcards and difficulty, not on logging your hours. If you want a record of time by activity, streaks and comprehension over time, that is the job Immersed does.
How do I get a free month of Migaku and 30 days of Immersed Pro?+
Sign in to Immersed, tap the pink Migaku bar at the top, and subscribe to Migaku through that link: the extra free month of Migaku comes with that signup. Come back, tap the bar again, and send the email you used on Migaku. I check claims by hand, usually within 24 hours. No card is needed, and nothing is charged when the 30 days end. Purchases made in the App Store can't be matched.
Is there a connection between Immersed and Migaku?+
Yes. I worked at Migaku, and Immersed has a partnership with Migaku: signing up through Immersed's link gets you an extra month of Migaku free and 30 days of Immersed Pro, and Migaku links in Immersed are affiliate links, so I earn a small share while you stay subscribed. That's why this page carries a disclosure.
How much does Migaku cost?+
On 2026-10-24, migaku.com showed a US visitor $10 a month or $96 a year for Standard, $15 a month or $144 a year for Early Access, and $499 for Lifetime. Prices vary by country and sale, and the iPhone app charges more, so check their pricing page.
Can Immersed import my Migaku known words?+
No. Immersed tracks time, not vocabulary, so there's nothing to import your word list into. Keep your known words in Migaku and your hours in Immersed.
Which should a beginner start with?+
If you can't follow anything yet, Migaku's lookups and starter courses help you get there faster. The free Immersed blueprint is still worth two minutes on day one: it shows how many hours your goal takes and where they fit in your day.
More comparisons
Stop guessing. See what your hours add up to.
Answer a few questions and Immersed builds your plan: a daily routine that fits your life, milestones for your first months, and things to watch at your level. Free, about two minutes, no account needed.
The plan is free and stays free. No card.
I worked at Migaku, and Immersed has a partnership with Migaku: if you sign up for Migaku through Immersed's link, you get an extra month of Migaku free and 30 days of Immersed Pro. Migaku links in Immersed are affiliate links: I earn a small share while you stay subscribed, at no extra cost to you.
Checked October 24, 2026 against published product information. Prices and features change; if something here is out of date, tell me on Discord and I'll fix it.