Recommended Kanji Resources

Listed below are some websites and other resources we recommend for your kanji studies. 

Noriko Williams’ Kanji Portraits NWilliams_KanjiPortraitsA fantastic resource which explains the origins of a large number of kanji and describes how they evolved over time. Search by English word e.g. ‘tree’ or kanji character e.g.  校

Yamasa kanji dictionary  This simple yet elegant site shows you the key information of most of the Joyo daily use kanji, with an animation showing the stroke order.  Simply paste or type the kanji into the box and click Enter.

How to type Japanese on your phone (Youtube video) A great way to test your knowledge of ON readings is to type new vocabulary into your phone or computer keyboard. This video is a short guide showing you how to use the kana keyboard on an iPhone.

Pop Jisyo I’ve been a fan of this dictionary site ever since Designer, Educator and Podcaster Lee Sean Huang told me about it circa 2004. Paste some Japanese text into the search box and click Full Text. It will bring up a version of the same text which allows you to hover over each kanji to see its meaning. This means you can easily check the meaning of unknown words while retaining the word order of the original Japanese. 

 

Jitenon A kanji dictionary used by Japanese native speakers. Type a full kanji or radical into the box and click Search. Click  Details on the right to see a full entry for that kanji, including meaning and readings. Switching the site to Japanese at this point seems to show more information, and the ability to click on the individual components and display a list of kanji that contain the same component. 

Our resources

List of radicals by subject 

List of phonetic components 

Introduction to kanji structure (Youtube video)

Read more blog posts from The Kanji Code author Natalie Hamilton.

%d bloggers like this: