Explore Japanese characters (kanji) and their vocabulary
There are 3 ways to select a character:
- Search for a character using the search box, or ...
- Click on a category button in the first column and browse the characters from the list, or ...
- Add
?q=<character>to the URL
Words containing the character will be displayed in the middle column.
Choose an external reference for the kanji and vocab from the dropdown box. The web page will be shown in the right column.
Click on the cog button on the lower right of the search box to visit the settings page.
- GRADE: Kyouiku kanji are grouped by school grades, while Jouyou kanji are grouped based on the Kanji Kentei levels. The 2020 list (with prefecture kanji in 4th grade) is used. Characters are further sorted and grouped by representative readings.
- ICE: Ice's Hanzigong-style kanji grouping. Characters are grouped based on the visual "core" part (usually the phonetic component, but not always), and the cores are grouped based on themes (e.g., Nature includes 日, 月, 夕, 土, 山, ...). The characters include Jouyou kanji and a number of other common characters.
- WANI: WaniKani
- RTK: James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, Book 1, 6th edition.
- KKLC: Andrew Scott Conning's The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, grouped into chunks of 200 characters.
- ODYSSEY: 2001.Kanji.Odyssey.
- JLPT: Vocabulary lists from Jonathan Waller's website.
- JSL: Japanese: The Spoken Language published by Yale Language Press. These are the textbooks I used at MIT (right before they switched to Genki and Tobira). (Beginner to Intermediate)
- Genki: Genki series. (Beginner)
- Minna no Nihongo I-II: Minna no Nihongo volumes I and II (Beginner) (Source)
- Tobira: Tobira: Gateway to Advanced Japanese (Intermediate)
- WaniKani: WaniKani
- Common: Words marked (P) from JMDict
A proper font must be used to display Japanese characters correctly. The bottom of 直 should be an L instead of a horizontal line.