Aim the vertical guide
Place the tall guide over a printed column and let on-device recognition find likely terms near the center.
Live Text ready
今日は図書館で日本語の本を読みます。
知らない言葉を見つけたら調べます。
漢字の読み方を確認して戻ります。
としょかん図書館library
Printed Japanese, readable in the moment
KanjiLens
Point your iPhone at printed Japanese and get furigana-style readings, offline definitions, and saved lookups without leaving the page in front of you.
Fast reading loop
Aim, confirm, keep reading.
Check the reading
KanjiLens keeps the selected word stable while you pan, then shows its hiragana reading in the camera view.
Save what matters
Open the definition, listen or copy the term, and bookmark it when it is worth revisiting.
Built for printed text
The reading aids learners reach for when the print gets dense.
Live Text OCR for Japanese
Uses Apple's on-device scanner for Japanese text, including vertical columns common in books and handouts.
Furigana-style readings
Shows hiragana readings for kanji and jukugo in a compact overlay designed for one-handed portrait reading.
Offline definitions
Opens a bundled Japanese-English dictionary sheet, with an optional Japanese definition view when available.
Searchable bookmarks
Save the lookups worth keeping and find any of them again by kanji, reading, or meaning — all stored on your device.
No account required
Designed for quick, private lookup.
KanjiLens uses on-device text recognition and bundled dictionary data for the core reading workflow. No account is required, and saved bookmarks stay on your device.
iPhone
Made for iPhone, iOS 17 and later.
KanjiLens is being polished before a public release. This page will link to the download when it is available.