Find a Kanji by Drawing It
Start drawing. Matches appear here after each stroke.
Tap a kanji above to see its meaning and readings.
How to find a kanji by drawing it
Draw the kanji in the square, one stroke at a time, with your finger on a phone or a mouse on a computer. The suggestions update after every stroke and while you're still drawing, so there's no button to press when you finish. If the kanji you want appears before you've drawn all of it, tap it. Undo takes back the last stroke and Clear wipes the pad. Each suggestion shows the kanji with its first English meaning, which helps you tell look-alikes such as 待 (wait) and 持 (hold) apart at a glance. Tap one and its card opens under the pad. The Copy button puts the kanji on your clipboard, ready to paste into a dictionary or a message.
Why stroke order doesn't matter
You can draw the strokes in any order and in any direction. The kanji recognition compares your strokes with the strokes of each kanji and pairs them up in the best possible way, so the order you drew them in can't change the result. Start 右 with the box or with the horizontal line and you get the same suggestions. This matters because you rarely know the correct order for a kanji you can't read yet. Rough drawing is forgiven too. A drawing with a stroke missing, or with two strokes run together, usually still matches. Proper stroke order is still worth learning if you want to write well, and the kanji worksheet generator makes practice sheets for that. You just don't need it to look a kanji up.
Kanji meaning, readings and JLPT level
The card under the pad shows the kanji large, its English meanings and its stroke count. Most kanji have two kinds of reading. On readings came into Japanese from Chinese and are written in katakana. You mostly hear them when the kanji is part of a compound word, such as ショク in 食事 (しょくじ, a meal). Kun readings are native Japanese and are written in hiragana. You usually hear them when the kanji stands alone or is followed by kana. The brackets mark the kana that follow the kanji, so た(べる) means 食べる. The card also shows the JLPT level, from N5 to N1, when the kanji has one. The JLPT publishes no official lists, so our levels come from OpenJLPT.
Looking up kanji from signs, menus and manga
This tool is for the kanji you can see but can't copy: on a sign, a menu, a page of manga, a book or a photo. You don't know the reading, so you can't type it. Drawing it gets around that. A kanji dictionary lets you search by radical or by stroke count, but only if you can tell which part is the radical and count the strokes correctly. A kanji lookup by drawing skips both steps. The tool finds one kanji at a time and doesn't translate words or sentences. For a word like 駐車場 on a parking sign, draw 駐 and copy it, then draw 車 and 場 and paste each one after it. Now you have the whole word to put into a dictionary. It's slower than typing, but it works when typing doesn't. If you already have the text as text, the kanji to hiragana converter is quicker. Paste it in and furigana appears above every kanji.
What it covers, and what to do when a kanji isn't found
The tool knows 2,383 kanji. That's all 2,136 jōyō kanji, the official list for everyday use, plus 247 jinmeiyō (name) kanji that appear on the JLPT lists. It doesn't recognize hiragana or katakana, and rare name kanji aren't included. If the kanji you want doesn't appear, draw bigger and fill the square, because a small drawing in one corner is harder to match. Then finish more strokes, since each one gives the matcher more to go on. Your drawing never leaves your device. Matching runs in your browser. There's no app to install and no signup. We count page opens, taps and copies, but never which kanji you looked up.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find a kanji by drawing it?
Draw it in the square with your finger or mouse, and up to 10 suggestions appear as you draw. Tap the right one to see its meaning and readings, or press Copy to paste it somewhere else.
Does stroke order matter?
No. The order and direction of your strokes can't change the result, because the matcher pairs your strokes with the kanji's strokes in the best possible way. A stroke missing or two strokes run together usually still matches.
Can I look up a kanji without knowing its radical, reading or stroke count?
Yes. Typing a kanji needs its reading, and a kanji dictionary needs its radical or stroke count before you can find it. Here you draw what you see, in any stroke order.
Can it tell me what a kanji means?
Yes. Tap a suggestion and the card shows its English meanings, on and kun readings, stroke count and JLPT level when it has one. Readings and meanings come from KANJIDIC2.
Can I look up a whole word or sentence?
No, it finds one kanji at a time and doesn't translate. To read a word, draw each kanji in turn and copy them one after another, or paste text you already have into the kanji to hiragana converter.
Can I draw any Japanese character, including hiragana and katakana?
No. It recognizes kanji only: all 2,136 jōyō kanji plus 247 name kanji from the JLPT lists, 2,383 in total. Rare name kanji aren't included.
Why can't it find my kanji?
Draw bigger so the kanji fills the square, and finish more of the strokes. If it still doesn't appear, it may be a rare kanji outside the 2,383 the tool covers.
Do I need an app or an account?
No. It's free and runs in your browser, on a phone or a computer. Your drawing stays on your device, and we count only page opens, taps and copies, never which kanji you looked up.
Licenses and credits
Kanji readings and meanings come from KANJIDIC2, the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, used in conformance with the Group's licence. Kanji shapes for matching come from KanjiVG, copyright Ulrich Apel, released under CC BY-SA 3.0. JLPT level groupings follow OpenJLPT (CC BY-SA 4.0), based on Jonathan Waller's JLPT resources; the JLPT itself publishes no official lists.