Dictionary & Kanji

The Dictionary & kanji view is a single search box that answers with both JMdict word entries and kanji reference cards, including stroke-order diagrams. It is also where you can add a word to spaced repetition without having met it in a book.

Searching

Type Japanese text into the search box — kanji, kana, or any word form (猫, ねこ, 食べる). Results update as you type; the ✕ button clears the query and refocuses the box.

Matching runs over the dictionary's form index: a form matches when it equals the query exactly or starts with it (prefix matching), so ねこ also surfaces ねこじた and friends. Up to 30 word entries are returned per query.

If the reference data was never downloaded (you chose "Continue without dictionary" at first run), the view shows a no-dictionary notice instead of results; retry the download from the banner. See Getting-Started.

Word entries

The left column lists word entries. Each shows:

• the headword, with its kana reading in parentheses when they differ,
• a status chip (unknown / learning / known / ignored) if you have already met the word while reading,
• the first three senses, with their English glosses.

Learn (SRS) from search

Each entry carries a ➕ Learn (SRS) button (hidden when the word is already in learning status). Clicking it:

1. Runs the headword through the morphological analyzer to derive the canonical word key (lemma, reading, part of speech) — the same key the reader uses, so the search hit and the word you later meet in a book are one record, not duplicates. If analysis yields nothing, the headword itself is used as a noun.
2. Creates the word record if it has never been seen.
3. Starts a review card without a sentence context. Cards created while reading show the sentence the word came from; cards created from search have none until you meet the word in a book. See Reviews-and-SRS.

Kanji cards

The right column shows up to six kanji cards. They are chosen from the kanji characters in your query, in order; if the query contains no kanji (a kana search), the cards come from the headwords of the top three word hits instead — so searching ねこ still produces the card for 猫.

Each card contains:

Grade, JLPT, frequency, and variants only appear when KANJIDIC2 records them for that character.

Stroke-order diagrams

When KanjiVG has data for the character, the card draws a numbered stroke-order diagram: each stroke is rendered from its SVG path, numbered at its starting point, and colored on a gradient from accent blue (first stroke) to gray (last stroke) so the order is readable at a glance.

KanjiVG covers roughly half of KANJIDIC2's characters. For kanji it does not cover — mostly rare and archaic ones — the card shows the character large instead of a diagram; everything else on the card is unaffected.

Kanji chips in the reader

You do not have to leave the book to look up a kanji. In the reader's word panel, each kanji of the selected headword appears as a chip under the headword; clicking a chip expands the same kanji card inline, diagram included. See Reading.

Data sources and licenses

The kanji data is downloaded once at first run into the app's data directory, alongside JMdict, and imported into the local database; after that, lookups are fully offline.

KANJIDIC2 is fetched from EDRDG's canonical URL (the file is regenerated daily; no pinned version exists). KanjiVG is pinned to an immutable GitHub release tag. Word entries come from JMdict via the jmdict-simplified project — see Getting-Started for the full reference-data list.