Snap any Japanese text and read every kanji
Looking up kanji one by one — drawing them by hand or hunting by radical — kills your reading flow.
Kanji Reader reads the Japanese in a photo and shows furigana above every kanji. Textbooks, manga, novels, letters, signs: take a photo or pick one from your library, and you can read it.
Furigana on every kanji, from one photo
Take a photo or choose one from your photo library. OCR pulls out the Japanese text and adds readings in hiragana above the kanji, like 調(しら)べます.
- Tap "Hide Furigana" to test yourself without the readings.
- Copy the extracted Japanese into any app with one tap.
Understand what it means, not just how to read it
Tap "Explain" and AI gives you a summary, the key terms and a detailed explanation of the passage. Choose from 15 explanation languages, including English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Hear how it sounds
Tap play and your phone's Japanese voice reads the text aloud, so you can follow along with your eyes and ears.
Bind your scans into Books
Save any reading or explanation into a Book with one tap. Books get a table of contents and turn like real pages, so you can read them again tomorrow. With Premium, export a Book as a PDF for your tablet or e-reader.
Practice with the Japanese you care about
Pick up to 3 chapters from a Book's table of contents, and AI writes short written-answer questions from that exact text. Read the question, think, then turn the page for the answer and explanation.
Built with your privacy in mind
- No account or sign-in needed.
- Your Books and Quizzes are stored on your device.
- To read the text, add furigana, explain it and write questions, your image and text are sent through the Developer's server to AI services. The Developer does not store your images or text on its servers.
- Usage analytics never include your scanned text or images.
See the Privacy Policy for details.
When it helps
- Learning Japanese from a textbook or workbook you already own
- Reading manga, novels and song lyrics in the original
- Living in Japan: mail, forms, notices and menus
- Japanese work documents, slides and handouts
- You speak some Japanese but keep getting stuck on kanji
Pricing
The basics are free.
- Scans and explanations are free up to 2 times a day in total.
- Writing practice questions needs a short ad.
- Watching ads adds up to 3 more uses a day across scans, explanations and questions.
- You can make 1 Book and 1 Quiz, with up to 10 pages (or 10 questions) each.
Premium (auto-renewing subscription)
| Benefit | Free | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Scans and explanations | 2 a day | Unlimited |
| Practice questions | Watch an ad | Unlimited |
| Extra uses from ads | Up to 3 a day | No ads needed |
| Books and Quizzes | 1 each, up to 10 pages (10 questions) | Unlimited |
| PDF export of Books and Quizzes | — | Yes |
| Import multiple pages at once | — | Up to 3 photos |
Premium is a monthly plan. The price and any free trial are shown on the purchase screen in the App. It renews automatically until you cancel, and you can cancel at any time in your App Store or Google Play account settings. See the Terms of Service for details.
Furigana and explanations are generated by AI and may contain mistakes. For important documents, check the original or ask the issuer.
