Too small. Try using most of the available space.
Most of the time I can just guess at the reading and find what I’m looking for (hooray phonetic components), but when that doesn’t work I manually look it up with jisho’s radical search function. It takes some getting used to but I find that the fastest way for me to find exactly what I’m looking for, and I think it’s helpful for learning the kanji as well. Back when I knew very little kanji and searching every single character I came across was extremely onerous I used a program called KanjiTomo which @banditraider already mentioned. If you’re playing on PC I highly recommend it. It has trouble with very low-resolution characters, or ones that are highly stylized, but for something like Stardew Valley I think it shouldn’t have any issues.
On the iPhone, I use an app called “Yomiwa” – it lets you either use an existing image or the Camera to find Kanji characters. It’ll recognize them (and words) and the app is a dictionary, so you can click through to see the definitions.
It’s similar to Google Translate, but, I find it easier to work with when I’m just looking for Kanji translations and not entire sentence to english translations.
Just googling it, it looks like its also available on Android as well. https://www.yomiwa.net
Yeah, I’ve tried it out multiple times, but it fails even for relatively basic kanji.
It’s been radical search all the way for me.
That being said, I don’t know much about stroke order, so that’s definitely a factor.
This might sound surprising, but I’ve found that google translate’s kanji writing recognition has been the thing that has worked the best for me.
I have a tablet and I have written kanji on Jisho and other similar kanji recognition websites, correct stroke order and everything, and they are all still so hit-or-miss. Google translate has not missed it a single time.
All you have to do is select Japanese as the language to translate and on the bottom right corner of the box, you select the input type, and you can change from typing to drawing. I’ve found it works wonders even with just a mouse, and incorrect kanji order. Once it recognizes it, you can just copy the symbol and paste it on Jisho or something.
Example:
I take photos via google translate. I use it on my switch everyday. Its so simple.
It occasionally analyses a few kanji wrong but some of the onscreen game text is tiny and Im actually amazed how good it is at picking stuff up.
Okay, now we’re talking. Seems like it does like its kanji big…
Thanks!!!
Same here - it’s more forgiving with stroke order than jisho in my experience.
Most of the time if I can find two distinctive radicals I put those into Jisho, and though it can be kind of time-consuming and fiddly that usually does the trick. If I don’t want to interrupt the rhythm of playing to do that every time, I get a little Windows+S snapshot (not sure if there’s an equivalent key on Mac or other) and paste them into a small Paint file or something, then look up a batch later. Bringing up Google Translate on mobile and using the Scan function has also been really useful, and though it’s not a guaranteed match, it can often at least do a good job of clarifying the radicals of really stylized kanji.
Also, thanks to the people here who explained Jisho wants your kanji to go huge–I’d never had any success with the drawing function before, so maybe this’ll help :')
I haven’t read all the responses so someone may have mentioned something like this already but
when I need to look up a kanji I don’t know (and can’t copy/paste etc), I usually try to pick out the radicals and first see if it’s on WK. If I don’t get anywhere with that, I still try to use the radicals to search on Jisho. Most of the time, this works out. But of course it’s not a perfect strategy.
I second Akebi. Finger drawing is so much easier than with a mouse and phones are more convenient when I’m gaming
Thanks everyone! I’ve tried KanjiTomo but it can’t seem to find the right characters. I had a little more luck with Yomiwa. If that doesn’t work I guess there’s always mouse drawing.
Have you checked out this guide by @TrinityBringer? Maybe there’s something that can help you, like in the tools section of the guide.
Honestly the “how exactly does this character recognition algorithm work” detective game shows why personally I just got used to going the radical-selection route.
It’s fiddly and can be slow (and the system has its own quirks…), but usually you can spot at least one slam dunk radical that’s definitely in the kanji, and over time I’ve gotten a better feel for picking out radicals quickly. And I like that better than guessing at stroke count and order when I know my handwriting is much worse than my recognition and don’t know for sure what the algorithm will pick up on.
(YMMV of course)
Really surprised nobody’s mentioned Multi-Radical Kanji Search. It’s what I use for games and print books. It lets you search kanji just by inputting WaniKani radical names. It’s way faster than anything else I’ve tried.
Here’s an American HS Japanese teacher’s Let’s Play of Stardew Valley where he pauses and breaks down everything as he goes through it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUiSI6qGVDKuwxnpu-Ak4hVOpcqC59CDo
Like others have said: Jisho has a search engine that lets you use writing and google has it as well, you just need to open up the actual translator webpage and not use the basic translator on the search page. If you have a phone you can also look on any appstore that works to see if you can get a japanese keyboard that has a handwriting tool if your phone doesn’t already have one!
Actually, I realized today that it just needs to be centered properly (which happens to also be inevitable if you use all the space).
I guess size really doesn’t matter after all.