Android vs. Windows Mobile for kanji input?

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Reply #1 - 2012 October 08, 1:17 pm
MeisterLlama Member
From: Houston Registered: 2008-05-20 Posts: 20

How do Android phones compare to Windows Mobile phones for kanji input?  By that I mean drawing kanji with finger and stylus and recognizing the character.  Ideally this input would be useable in all areas of the OS, e.g. browser, apps, everything.

Reply #2 - 2012 October 08, 11:09 pm
prink Member
From: Minneapolis Registered: 2010-11-02 Posts: 200

I can't speak to either of those phones, but since no one else has posted, I'll go ahead and throw it out there that the iPhone does this fairly well as long as you know stroke order. I had an Android (Evo 4) for a couple days, but I can't say much about it. Felt clunky compared to the iPhone and returned it out of frustration.

Reply #3 - 2012 October 08, 11:54 pm
TomTomHatesCats Member
From: NYC Registered: 2011-05-22 Posts: 28

I, also, haven't played with Windows Mobile, but, as far as Japanese goes, I've been suffering on Android for a couple of years. There's an app called Kanji Recognizer which is a dictionary for hand-drawn kanji but, like iOS, it's not very forgiving with bad stroke order, which, if you're studying with RTK, that should not be a problem. This is not a bad app, otherwise.

However, as far as dictionaries go, Android is behind iOS by a country mile. I've used mostly JED and Aedict, and they're both highly suspect. Searching for conjugated verbs is hit-or-miss. Verb results, once found, may or may not be missing conjugations. There are other little problems. Like prink said, they just feel clunky on Android. If someone knows of an Android dictionary that's any better than the ones I cited, I'd love to hear about it.

I am not an iOS fan at all, but I had to get myself an iPod Touch just to have access to iOS's Japanese dictionaries. Kotoba (which is now called imiwa) is free and perfect for 9 out of 10 things you're trying to look up. Midori, which is a paid dictionary, has the option for hand-drawn searches, as well as searches for proper names, which is pretty useful.

Sorry if I strayed off topic.

-Tom

Last edited by TomTomHatesCats (2012 October 09, 12:56 am)

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Reply #4 - 2012 October 09, 3:36 pm
monitor Member
Registered: 2012-03-13 Posts: 21

For handwritten Japanese input on Android, get the 7notes with mazec keyboard. It works amazingly well, even when you just "scribble" the characters. Since it's a keyboard and not a dedicated app, you can use it in any app, in any input field (dictionaries, browsers, chat, etc.). Get a 10-day trial here.

As for dictionaries on Android, what you want to do is get a 電子辞書-quality professional dictionary. You can do this by first installing DroidWing and then torrenting copies of various dictionaries in the EPWING format. I have Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary/New English-Japanese Dictionary and Koujien on my phone - the best J-E/E-J and J-J dictionaries out there.

Last edited by monitor (2012 October 09, 10:54 pm)

Reply #5 - 2012 October 09, 7:41 pm
juniperpansy Member
Registered: 2009-08-03 Posts: 164

Can't directly answer your question.. but check out the galaxy note /galaxy note 2 with android as they have a proper stylus and wacom digitizer. Drawing kanji with fingers is not fun

Reply #6 - 2012 October 10, 8:38 am
Zarxrax Member
From: North Carolina Registered: 2008-03-24 Posts: 949

The aedict app for android lets you input kanji by drawing them. I think it works about as well as this: http://kanji.sljfaq.org/draw.html
Maybe even the same thing.

I've personally never found it terribly useful. When you need to look up something all of a sudden, its just rather cumbersome to first get your phone out, then pull up the aedict app, then navigate to the kanji input screen, and then fiddle with trying to get it to recognize whatever you are drawing with your thumb.

Reply #7 - 2012 October 13, 9:06 pm
MeisterLlama Member
From: Houston Registered: 2008-05-20 Posts: 20

Zarxrax wrote:

The aedict app for android lets you input kanji by drawing them. I think it works about as well as this: http://kanji.sljfaq.org/draw.html
Maybe even the same thing.

I've personally never found it terribly useful. When you need to look up something all of a sudden, its just rather cumbersome to first get your phone out, then pull up the aedict app, then navigate to the kanji input screen, and then fiddle with trying to get it to recognize whatever you are drawing with your thumb.

I would use it mostly when I'm reading a Japanese somewhere not at home and there's a word I don't recognize.  How else would you look up the word?  Searching by radicals has always been slower for me.

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