Dictionary
Searching the Japanese dictionary
The search box finds words, kanji and names by their written form, their reading or their English meaning. Flags narrow the results, the input method turns romaji, meanings and kanji parts into Japanese text, and the radical lookup finds a kanji from the parts you can see in it.
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Type kanji, kana, romaji or English. Romaji is searched as hiragana and katakana too, so neko finds ねこ and ネコ. A search matches the start of a form, a reading or a meaning: tabe finds 食べる and 食べ物. A conjugated verb or adjective is also looked up in its dictionary form, so 食べました finds 食べる.
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
| tabe | 食べる, 食べ物, 食べ過ぎる and other words starting with たべ |
| 食べました | 食べる, its dictionary form |
| water | 水 and other words meaning water |
| "neko" | only words read or written exactly ねこ: 猫 |
| "kaku" #verb | the verbs read かく: 書く, 描く, 欠く, 掻く |
| *shoku | words ending in しょく, such as 外食 and 飲食 |
| ta?ru | one unknown kana between た and る: 食べる, 建てる, タオル |
| mizu #kanji | 水 and the other kanji with a reading starting with みず |
Quotes ask for an exact match. * stands for any number of characters and ? for exactly one.
Exact matches come first. After them, the results are ordered the same way as the example words on a kanji page: the words you know best, then the words most relevant to you, then the most frequent ones. Without an account, the order is by frequency alone.
Flags
A flag starts with # and filters the results. taberu #ichidan keeps ichidan verbs only, and #common #slang lists common slang words without any search text. Every flag in a search has to match.
#word, #kanji (or #char) and #name keep one kind of entry: mizu #kanji shows the kanji read みず and no words or names. They filter a search and do nothing on their own.
Many flags also have a short name, so #ichidan and #v1 are the same flag. Typing a word from a flag’s description finds it as well: #kenjougo suggests #humble. Dictionary entries show the same short labels next to each meaning.
| Flag | Keeps |
|---|---|
| #common | common words |
| #word, #kanji, #name | words only, kanji only, names only |
| #jlpt-n4 | words and kanji on the JLPT N4 list |
| #verb, #godan, #adjective | any verb, any godan verb, any adjective |
| #kansai | Kansai dialect |
| #joyo, #grade-2 | jōyō kanji, kanji taught in grade 2 |
| #strokes:4-6 | kanji with 4 to 6 strokes |
| #rad:sanzui | kanji containing 氵 |
| #comp:吾 | kanji containing 吾, such as 語 and 悟 |
Flags combine with each other and with search text:
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
| #jlpt-n5 #verb | the verbs on the N5 list: 飲む, 見る, 書く… |
| #onomatopoeia #common | common sound and mimetic words: うろうろ, うっかり… |
| #grade-1 #strokes:2 | first-grade kanji with two strokes: 人, 十, 二, 九… |
| #joyo #rad:sanzui #strokes:5 | five-stroke jōyō kanji with 氵 or 水: 永, 氷, 汁, 氾 |
| tabe #noun | nouns starting with たべ: 食べ物, 食べ歩き |
Kanji flags apply to kanji only, word flags to words only. A search for #strokes:3 therefore shows kanji and no words.
The ? button in the search box opens the full list, and clicking a flag there adds it to the search.
Every flag
Searching your own study data
The flags and keywords below work only when you are signed in. The flag list marks these flags, and signed out the search does not offer them.
These flags filter by what you have done with a word or kanji. #new keeps what you marked new or have not marked at all, so it needs search text or another flag next to it. Several level flags together match any of them: #seen #familiar keeps both.
| Flag | Keeps |
|---|---|
| #new, #seen, #familiar, #known, #mastered | words and kanji at that level of yours |
| #due | what is due for review now |
| #learning | what is still in its first learning steps |
| #leech | leeches: cards you kept forgetting in review |
| #suspended | what you suspended from review |
| #looked-up, #looked-up:7d | what you looked up in a popup, ever or in the last 7 days |
| #reviewed, #reviewed:1d | what you reviewed, ever or in the last day |
| Search | Finds |
|---|---|
| taberu #known | words read たべる that you know |
| #looked-up #new | what you looked up but have not learned yet |
| #leech #jlpt-n5 | your leeches on the N5 list |
| #due #looked-up:7d | due reviews you met again this week |
The keywords on your flashcards count as meanings. If a card for 食べ物 has the keyword grub, searching grub finds 食べ物. Only cards in decks you made or have studied count, so your results can differ from a signed-out search.
With the search box empty, your recent searches are listed: pick one to search again, remove one with its ×, or clear the list. The input method also remembers the candidate you picked for a sequence and offers it first next time. Signed in, both are kept in your account and follow you to your other devices; signed out, they stay on this one.
The input method
The input method writes Japanese without a Japanese keyboard. Turn it on with the あ button in the search box. While it is on, what you type becomes a sequence, underlined in the box, and the list under the box offers what the sequence could stand for. Pick an entry and it replaces the sequence. The next thing you type starts a new sequence.
Each sequence is read several ways at once:
- Reading. Romaji or kana.
taberuoffers the word 食べる, the kanji 食 (read た.べる), and the kana たべる and タベル. Conjugated forms work too:tabetekudasaioffers 食べてください, andbenkyoushimashitaoffers 勉強しました. - Meaning. English.
wateroffers 水, then other kanji and words meaning water. - Parts. Two or more parts joined with +.
sanzui+kouoffers 江 and the other kanji with 氵 and a part read こう. A part can be a radical name in romaji or kana (sanzui, さんずい), its English meaning (water), the radical itself (氵), any kanji (吾) or the English meaning of a kanji: fire+rice paddy finds 畑, since rice paddy is 田. - Meaning and parts. One part may be an English word that is not a radical name. It then filters by meaning:
lake+wateroffers 湖, the kanji meaning lake that contains 氵. - Words by parts. Parts find words too. Each part matches one kanji of the word, in any order: the kanji itself, a part inside it, or its meaning.
food+heartoffers 食感, since 食 means food and 感 contains 心, andheart+eatfinds it as well. An English part can also match the meaning of the whole word:texture+heartoffers 感触 and 食感. The list starts with a few kanji, then the words, then the remaining kanji.
| Sequence | Offers |
|---|---|
| neko | 猫, 猫舌, 猫背, ねこ, ネコ |
| tabemashita | 食べました |
| ikanakatta | 行かなかった |
| takakatta | 高かった |
| kimashita | 着ました and 来ました |
| water | 水, 潮, 湯, 滝 and words meaning water |
| 言+吾 | 語 |
| woman+child | 好 |
| person+tree | 休, 体 and other kanji with 人 and 木 |
| gonben+go | 許, 語, 誤: 言 and a part read ご |
| fire+rice paddy | 畑 |
| lake+water | 湖 |
| water+mouth #strokes:9 | 活, 洞 |
| food+heart | 食感, 感触 |
| eat+heart, heart+eat | 食感 |
| texture+heart | 感触, 食感 |
| mountain+fire | 炭, then 火山 and 出火 |
| electricity+car | 電撃, 電車 |
| 言+吾 | 語, then 言語, 英語 and other words with 語 |
Flags work inside a sequence too. water+mouth #strokes:9 keeps the 9-stroke kanji, and tabe #noun keeps nouns such as 食べ物.
Pick radicals… under the candidates opens the radicals inside the list. Each radical you pick is added to the sequence as a part, and picking it again takes it out. Radicals you typed into the sequence yourself, as the radical character, start out picked. Below the radicals are the kanji that contain all of them: pick one and it takes their place in the sequence.
Enter inserts the highlighted candidate, the arrow keys and Tab move through the list, and Escape keeps the sequence as you typed it. When there is no sequence, Enter searches as usual. The keys can be changed, see Keyboard shortcuts.
There is always at least one candidate: the sequence itself, as typed.
Finding a kanji by its radicals
The 部 button opens the radical lookup. Pick the parts you can see in a kanji: the list below keeps the kanji that contain all of them, sorted by stroke count. Radicals that no remaining kanji contains are greyed out. The box above the radicals finds one by name, in English or Japanese. The lookup also has a page of its own: kanji by radical.
The radicals are the 214 Kangxi radicals from the kanji pages, with their variant forms such as 氵 for 水 and 亻 for 人. Picking one form finds kanji written with any form of that radical, and a form two radicals share, such as 月 for moon and for meat, is shown once and finds both. A kanji counts as containing a radical when the radical appears anywhere in it, not only as its classical radical: 語 contains 言, 五 and 口. The breakdown comes from KanjiVG, and from Make Me a Hanzi for kanji KanjiVG does not cover (see the acknowledgements).
Keyboard shortcuts
These are your current keys. Change them with the button below, or under Keyboard Shortcuts in the account menu.
Lingaku