App to identify kanji

Is there any app which I can use to hover over any text I read, so that it can recognise kanji?

Yes. Yomiwa it is called. Works quite fine. For reading a book it would be quite tedious, but to check sth now and then it is good.

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You could also use Google Translate for this. It has a camera feature which will show the romaji reading for the kanji, so you can look it up in a proper dictionary.

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It says the recognition features are paid

I have a screenshot.

I use Shirabe Jisho which has radical look up and handwritten input which is quite forgiving to my bad handwriting.

I just tried Yomiwa and have to admit it is pretty slick. Costs $4 but probably worth it.

When OCR fails, I find this website very useful for looking up kanji: Handwritten kanji search at sljfaq.org

It has a few different options, but the ones I find most useful are:

  • Handwritten: Works surprisingly well (I find it helps to check the ā€œignore stroke orderā€ option, since Iā€™m often uncertain of the stroke order).
  • By radical / multi-radical: If you can recognize 1 or 2 radicals in the kanji this is a very quick option.

Thereā€™s a few other options you can play with as well.

@zyoeru thanks both.

You can also upload saved photos (so, a screenshot) into Google Translate. Google Translate is garbage, however I keep it installed to easily pop unfamiliar kanji into Jisho.

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That is correct. You did not ask for freeware explicitely.

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:point_up_2:

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