Main dictionary for kanji search is KANJIDIC containing information about 6355 Japanese kanji. Tools for kanji look up are located inside Kanji tab.
JEDict supports several methods of kanji search:
In kanji search field type any text (English or Japanese) from kanji definition (meaning, readings or kanji itself) and press Enter key.
To find kanji by index, enter into kanji search field a code of corresponding index.
This code consists of a character prefix referring the index type and a number for index itself as shown in table below.
|
Prefix |
Number |
Example for kanji 日 |
|
none |
kanjidict index |
2610 |
|
g |
Gakken index |
g396 |
|
h |
Halpern index |
h3027 |
|
i |
Haig index |
i2410 |
|
n |
Nelson index |
n2097 |
|
o |
O'Neil index |
o5 |
|
p |
SKIP code |
P3-3-1 |
|
s |
Stroke number |
s4 |
|
u |
Unicode (hexadecimal) |
u65e5 |
A triangle located to the left of search field opens a popup menu with a list of all these codes.
This is the most effective method of kanji search. 6355 kanji from kanjidict are classified using 440 graphical components. These components (graphemes or pictograms) include 214 radicals and 226 non-radical elements and are grouped by stroke index.
To find composite kanji you need to specify one or more simpler kanji components, and JEDict will display all kanji containing chosen components.
To find appropriate kanji component (radical/grapheme) click on Grapheme stroke selector, and JEDict will display graphemes with given stroke count.
Once grapheme is found, drag it to Grapheme filter. Alternatively you may send grapheme to Grapheme filter by double clicking on it.
If you choose List auto-update option, one click on graphemeis enough to send it to Grapheme filter. Any time Grapheme filter is modified, a list of displayed kanji is updated correspondingly. Simultaneously the Grapheme selector list is also updated to show only allowed graphemes, i.e. those graphemes that may appear with selected grapheme combination.
If List auto-update box is unchecked, no filtering occurs during grapheme list editing. You compose the list of component by dragging graphemes or double clicking on graphemes. Single click in this case just expands the grapheme, i.e. displays kanji containing this grapheme in Kanji view, whereas double click send it to Grapheme filter. To initiate search of kanji containing chosen components, simply click on small search button near Grapheme filter.
If there is no kanji with selected graphemes combination, all views stay unchanged. A warning messsage is displayed at the bottom of the page.
Example. How to find kanji 捜 with activated Auto-update option In kanji 捜 three components are clearly distinguishable. Let starts with 才, To find this components, first click on button 3 in Grapheme stroke selector.
In view below a group of graphemes consisting of three strokes will be displayed.
To tell JEDict: "I want to find a kanji containing component 才", simply click on 才 pictogram (you may also drag and drop this component to any field of Grapheme filter).
Once chosen grapheme appears inside Grapheme filter, a Kanji view below will be filled with all kanji containing component 才.
The resulting list contains 231 kanji, i.e. the list is still big to extract wanted kanji.
Let's do another step and define second filter component 由. First click on button 5 to show five-strokes graphemes, then pick the 由 component.
There is only one kanji 捜 containing 才 and 由 components and this kanji is displayed as output.
Wanted kanji was found in four clicks!
In most cases two or thee components are well enough to find a kanji.
An important note. There are some graphemes that may look similar and can be easily confused especially in handwriting. For example kanji 田、甲、由 and 申. A fuzzy match check box specify if all similar graphemes should be treated as the same grapheme. In this case you receive a wider list of eight kanji all containing 才 grapheme and another grapheme similar to 田.
As default, the resulting kanji list is ordered by strokes, but you can choose another sorting criterion using sorting popup menu.
There are backspace button (<--) to delete last chosen component (or selected component) and clear button (x) to clear whole filter.
Whenever you click on kanji inside kanji view, a selected kanji is displayed in zoomed field showing an enlarged glyph, its stroke count, and its graphical components as classified by JEDict.
Two navigation buttons (<< and >>) provide scanning backward and forward inside current kanji list from Kanji table. Optionally, as defined by scan mode popup menu, all 6355 kanji characters may be scanned.
Using small popup menu in bottom right corner of big kanji you may select recently displayed kanji.
For about 2,000 most-used Japanese characters, stroke drawing order is displayed at the bottom of the Kanji Scanner view. I use stoke order database from Robert Wells JStroke 1.2 - Japanese Kanji handwriting recognition program for Palm, that in turn was derived from prior work by Todd David Ruddick on JavaDict and StrokeDic.
Two navigation buttons (<< and >>) provide scanning backward and forward inside current kanji list from Kanji table. Optionally, as defined by left-top corner popup menu of Fig.6, all 6354 kanji characters may be scanned.
For about 2,000 most-used Japanese characters, stroke drawing order is displayed at the bottom of the Kanji Scanner view. I use stoke order database from Robert Wells JStroke 1.2 - Japanese Kanji handwriting recognition program for Palm, that in turn was derived from prior work by Todd David Ruddick