I have dozens of photos of kanji taken during a week's visit to Tokyo before I did RTK. Now I'd like to learn to read them...

I can recognise many of the keywords, but putting them together doesn't necessarily help me figure out the meaning of a word / compound / sign. And since I don't know the reading, I can't type it into an online dictionary. Do I have to count the number of strokes of each kanji to look it up in a hardcopy dictionary to try and find the reading? And will that lead to eventually figuring out the meaning of a sign / notice, for instance? It seems like a painstaking way to go about reading - or is that what learning to read offline is like and I just have to face it?

Is there an online dictionary where I draw the kanji and it recognises it and brings up the reading and definition?

Or is there something like Rikaichan that can used over photos on a hard drive?

(I have a laptop with Windows 7 & Firefox, and a Galaxy Tab2 10.1)

I would appreciate any help you can offer. Many thanks.

jisho.org
Online Kanji Dictionary.

tagainijisho (http://www.tagaini.net)
+ some patience …

DevvaR Wrote:jisho.org
Online Kanji Dictionary.

Thank you!... Obviously, I could tell from the accompanying red prohibition circle over a phone what this meant: バスの中で電話携帯のご使用はご遠慮下さい. But now I can add 携帯電話、 ご使用　and　ご遠慮　to my vocabulary and kanji study. I searched using the radicals. Does that seem the way to go? I'm not missing this on the site, am I?

scarbydancer Wrote:Is there an online dictionary where I draw the kanji and it recognises it and brings up the reading and definition?

@Hyperborea and @jmignot
Wow, I will check both of these out, thank you so much!

Be careful, that sentence is written in keigo.

DevvaR Wrote:Be careful, that sentence is written in keigo.

Meaning, ご使用　and ご遠慮　don't begin with ご　?

scarby dancer Wrote:Is there an online dictionary where I draw the kanji and it recognises it and brings up the reading and definition?

Not an online dictionary but standard Microsoft Japanese IME has "IME Pad" where you can draw a character and it will try to recognise it. For example, I've written the phrase below entirely (including the 。) in IME Pad.

漢字の書き方を教えて下さい。

HTH

Inny Jan Wrote:Not an online dictionary but standard Microsoft Japanese IME has "IME Pad" where you can draw a character and it will try to recognise it....
HTH

Thanks, Inny Jan! It's exactly what I need. And combined with the Denshi Jisho Bookmarklet, I'm having fun now working out the readings of the kanji in my photos.

Capture2Text + a dictionary might be useful. Of course, sometimes the OCR makes mistakes, but it'd be better than mouse?-drawing all the kanji.

scarby dancer Wrote:

DevvaR Wrote:Be careful, that sentence is written in keigo.

Meaning, ご使用　and ご遠慮　don't begin with ご　?

Right, they are 使用 and 遠慮, the "go" prefix is making it more polite.

go here: http://tangorin.com/kanji/ and click multi-radical search. It is super easy to look up kanji from photos that way. Go here to look up vocab the same way: http://tangorin.com/general/

jmignot Wrote:tagainijisho (http://www.tagaini.net)
+ some patience …

え！　これはすごいですね！　ありがとうございます＾＿＾

i don't see the point in drawing out a kanji when you can just select a few radicals and it pops up.

[Zgarbas]

Alternatively, you can just draw them up in the IME pad. Unless it's some crazy stroke order (usually it's not) it'll find it quickly =)

if for some reason you need to ask a japanese person, you can ask on chiebukuro. signing up for an acocunt is easy. you just write 何と読みますか for the question.