I’m new to japanese and I have been looking for an easy, intuitive way of searching up the meaning of a kanji. But there doesn’t seem to be any easy way. On the right of the image is the kanji for “craft” and two others. I tried drawing that kanji in google translate. But the alternatives (under the drawings) don’t resemble the kanji I’d like to translate. I know the meaning is craft, the problem I have is that google translate doesn’t recognize the kanji, thus making google translate unreliable. But any other alternative such as a Japaneese dictionary is too complicated for me to navigate through.
TLDR; Just looking for a reliable way to search up the meaning of kanjis without having to manually scroll through thousands of different symbols.
24 comments
This is just a thought, but are you using the correct stroke order? That can throw the auto-detection algorithms off.
I had never used Google Translate for this prior to today, but I drew a crappy, crooked version of the same character with my crappy laptop touchpad, and it recognized it as 工事の工 with no difficulty (it was the first candidate listed).
i always use jisho.org
You can search by radicals in jisho.org.
If you use Android, Takoboto dictionary also has this option.
Also the handwriting feature of Gboard is usually accurate.
Hope it helps
If you practice being tested on drawing kanji (using basically the same detection system that kanji recognition is going to use – so it will be strict and loose in more or less the same areas!) with an app like Kanji! by Luli Languages, you’ll be able to do this easily.
If you need to search by handwriting, I recommend using [this site](https://kanji.sljfaq.org/draw.html), it lets you turn on an “ignore stroke order” setting so that you can still get accurate results without proper stroke order.
1. jisho.org allows you to search by radicals (kanji elements)
2. The real solution is to use only resources that allow copying. After some setup you can watch anime with copy-able subtitles. You can find manga after OCR that allows you to lookup kanjis. Just avoid anything that does not allow copying.
Three main ways to do this:
1) Google Lens which can OCR (visually transcribe) the text and allow you to look it up in your choice of dictionary. Just copy and paste the text output.
2) Drawing like you are, but you need to maintain some semblance of correct stroke order. Although OCR doesn’t rely on stroke order at all so it would be best just to use #1 instead of this.
3) Radical look up jisho.org has a radical look up (‘Radicals’ button) and when you combine it with wild card search e.g. 「？評？」→「高評価」you can find words rapidly (relatively).
I made a crappy little guide to do this radical look up: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fmn95okhchp4c1.png
BTW when writing kanji do NOT include the little serifs at the end of strokes (e.g. the little triangles on the horizontal strokes)—that will throw anyone and any algorithm off
You’re probably confusing the computer by adding the serifs at the ends of your strokes. Just use simple lines, don’t try to make it look pretty.
Shirabe Jisho app is pretty good for hand drawn kanji recognition.
Google’s handwriting recognition [can be impressive](https://files.catbox.moe/qnzojb.mp4), but if you are going to use handwriting recognition, you need to at least be close to the correct stroke order. It also might confuse the recognition if you hover over an area for an excessive amount of time or make big blots at the end to simulate the stroke terminations in calligraphy.
If you aren’t having luck with that method, I’d recommend jisho.org’s radical picker or using [SKIP codes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodansha_Kanji_Learner%27s_Dictionary#SKIP)
Stroke sequence and minute details about the way stroke is written are important to writing Chinese characters.
handwriting on my phone has almost always found what i was looking for even if I got half of it wrong and in the wrong order (gboard)
I use Yomiwa for kanji-search
I’m surprised no one has brought up Google Lens. [It works really well.](https://i.imgur.com/HoWsqnc.png)
On Android there’s a kanji lookup app that works like a charm. Don’t need to know radicals or stroke order.
searching by radicals is the best way for me
besides Jisho i would highly recommend the android app Kanji Study, the app is mostly have a study tool but have an amazing radical lookup feature
Alternatively, radical lookup in [jisho](https://jisho.org/#radical) is a nice quick way to find kanji without handwriting.
You can use jishoo to search up by radicals
Or you can use yomichan if the text is selectable alongside side a japanese dictionary like jmdict
Or you can use google lens
I use https://kanji.sljfaq.org/ either the hand drawn input or by radicals. It outputs results via Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC.
maybe the notches you drew might mess up with the detection
Are trying to read SAO by any chance OP…?
This website is great for searching kanji
https://kanji.sljfaq.org/
I know it looks weird but the recognition has almost never failed me. You can turn on “ignore stroke order”, which is crucial for a beginner or even intermediate imo since sometimes it really is hard to guess how to write the kanji (it works great, too. I honestly dont see a reason why you should leave it turned off).
I would then just copy the kanji and search it via jisho or some other program.
Btw if you cant find the kanji: if you draw it, it suggests a couple of possibly meant results. Then you click on the one you want to know about. Then a couple of links are shown. It is hard to find honestly, but at the top, above those links, beneath the blue banner, the kanji is shown. The website also gives you translation, I have no experience on how reliable they are though, I wouldnt risk learning a wront translation
Google translate and Google lens are godsends for recognizing visual information. Also don’t put calligraphy details in your writing. That’s a font. What you’re doing is the equivalent of using Times new roman as a handwriting reference lmao