Reviews (29)
A useful tool for assisting with JP reading i.e. mobile games. Overall OCR capability is good but can certainly struggle. Update: Latest update improved alternate kanji suggestions quite a bit and has seemed to make vertical OCR viable again, though it also has started to misrecognize size of hiragana more often. Best paired with Gboard's JP handwriting capability when misread kanji don't have the correct alternative among suggestions
Hey so first of all thanks for this amazing app, I just wanted to know if it was possible to add an option to make the app’s notification persistent, so we can easily and quickly enable it from there (the current behavior is that the notification is automatically dismissed after I click on shutdown, but keeping it there would be really handy, as we can just click on turn on to have it back on, without needing to go all the way back to the app drawer and launch the app again) ,this is just a suggestion but I hope you take it into consideration
This app is actually is kind of amazing, even though the OCR was pretty simple, it's still able to read most words. But this still have some issues though. For me it's the long and short taps, most of the time even tough I just want to scan the words it always goes into the filter settings and it's pretty frustrating. I suggest to change it into buttons to make things easier. Also, the dictionary is incomplete. It's missing some simple sentences. Maybe you can use jmdict to make it morecomplet
I'm having the same issue with the recognition of vertical text as someone mentioned before. I tried using the app with the same HQ picture on 2 devices: Xiaomi mi9t pro and Samsung galaxy Tab s7. The outcome is the same - none of the "recognized kanji/kana matches the original. There are some issues with horizontal text on both devices as well. Doesn't work with single characters too.
It works well for anything horizontal. But anything vertical it does not. I suggest you add a button to switch between vertical/horizontal like Capture2Text has on PC. The automated recognition mode this app is on, never works on C2T either which is why the switch is handy.
I know this is free and open source app....but, there is a catch. This app is very brilliant for the concept....just for the concept, and for the practice part? is utterly disappointing, bad ui is the main problem of this app....the only feature that working in this app is just copy a japanese text to google translate...and that's it, for the instant mode is complete mess...you need to resize the square box for many times...sorry for the bad english
Unfortunately, it just doesn't for vertical texts. It works well enough for horizontal texts, but flip it and it can't get any characters right. Considering that many applications where this app might be useful such as on manga, has horizontal texts, it's such a shame.
Not working on manga. So, it seems it works perfectly on horizontal text, but vertical text breaks it and it can't even recognize a single character :(
This is one of the most awesome, handy, innovative apps/(learning) tools i found (for Japanese). Amazing how it makes reading and studying easier. Especially when i talk with Japanese or read some Japanese text online for example. It would be even better if you could not only copy the selected text, but also either a kanji/compound/word or meaning. 5 stars if this is taken into improvements!
First time downloading Kaku app didn't work as none of the features showed up. Contacted the developer who was very helpful and supported me althroughout fixing. Kaku has made reading Japanese on my phone a lot easier. Enables me to learn on the go from any Japanese source without having to switch between 4 different apps every second (which is just demoralising). Interface is very compact on any screen and simple gestures make a lot happen. There's a tool for everything + great tutorial in-app.
Works great, and makes it a lot easier to play and understand Japanese games on my phone. The ability to check other similar kanji in case the app recognized it incorrectly is very convenient. Being able slide and adjust how well the app sees the character is great too. Only issue is that it occasionally doesn't grab the entire text in the selection box, but a quick retry generally fixes it.
Great app. It did take me a while to figure out how to turn pages. Also it seems like the latest Android release might have broken the way you could tap the notification pane to put the window in sleep mode. All in all this is an indispensable app for intermediate Japanese learners who want to use their mobile device to practice reading.
I tried it with several apps and it's a bit slow even tho my device has more than enough ram and storage room, I think it'd be much smoother and user friendly if you made the app so that it allows the user to resize the window and specify which word(s) they want read first before they press a "read/scan" button to get the translation directly from the floating dictionary. Thanks for your hard work I'll be keeping up with this app.
The controls are cumbersome, tedious, and hard to get used to, but this app saves stunningly huge amounts of time and frustration nonetheless. I can't find anything like it elsewhere, so five stars. Better controls, please! Also if it could integrate with some of the other popular Japanese apps like Kanji Study or Anki, that would be awesome.
I am really glad thatvan app like this exists. I have only one problem. When I am looking at the various kanji after selecting a sentence it sometimes sepperates the words out. ex: instead of registering 日本語 as one word it might recognize each one sepperately, though not specfically with that word, it's usually with more complicated words. I manage to get aroubd this by using google translate with it, but it would be nice if they added an option to highlight just a set of the kanji.
This tool is really useful, quick and easy to use, it helps me a lot with my Japanese learning every time I tackle a new common word I don't understand. One thing I noticed was that sometimes it has difficulty to recognize kanji, and I need to try multiple times which can be a little frustrating. Other than that I think it's really good since I don't need to close any app that I'm already using to translate some text. Thanks!
For a long time I've been switching between apps trying to find anything close to Rikai that I could use on my phone, your app is exactly what was missing, so thank you for putting it out! I've been using it for the past few hours playing a Japanese game on my phone and I don't think I've encountered any problems so far. The transition between using the app and playing the game hasn't interfered with the gaming experience. Can't wait use Kaku on more occasions!
I love this app - it's made me a lot more efficient in my Japanese learning. I like reading manga but it's a lot of work to look up words while read manga on my phone. This app has made that way easier. And being able to highlight text and have it translated right away is another great feature. Since I started using this app I've converted my random reddit reading on the phone into productive Japanese learning. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn Japanese!
Extremely useful app! I've been waiting for something like this for a long time. Two things would get me to go from 4 stars to 5: 1) make it so you can scroll to see captured text that can't fit in the UI overlay. 2) needs a LOT of improvement on ability to translate common kana-only expressions
I love this app! It makes playing Japanese mobile games so much easier. I wish there was a way to adjust how it reads the hiragana こ (ko), as it always reads it as 二 (ni). I am able to change it, but it becomes a pain when trying to translate quickly. Other than that, it works flawlessly. Thank you so much for this!
I tried it for a little bit, but it did not recognize the kanji well in a photo I took. The kanji and font was standard and very clear, but the app didn't pick up on what it said. I did try it in an app with text and it worked just fine. But I'd to use this technology with photos as well.
Takes too long and the recognition rate is very low, especially with less common words and kanji. Tried it now for some weeks with several documents, books, and pdfs. Has not convinced me, unfortunately. I am sure with more development, in the future, it will.
This app works very well and is handy, it recognizes text accurately in all the Japanese apps I play so far. Although occasionally, when I lock my phone while Kaku is active, I cant unlock it again and I'm forced to restart my phone. EDIT: My bad lol I noticed you can pull down the notification to shutdown the app!
Works really well, it's not always perfect but it's usually close enough It'd be nice if we could get this on PC, or even just an option to use the camera directly, it'd be a great help with trying to play PC games in japanese
I was looking for something like rikaikun and this is exactly what I was looking for. The image recognition part is kinda difficult to use but the text selection part is perfect.
I THANK THE DEVS SO MUCH FOR CREATING THIS APP. it certainly saved the hassle of having to rewrite this unknown kanji and searching for it manually!!! i could read novels (albeit slowly) without having to leave the page,,, just a click and wow we have the onyomi kunyomi even alternative meanings and recommended words?! amazing i love you guys so much may always be blessed
this is an amazing app and exactly what i needed ❤️♥️ just one feature I hope can be added; to be able to share seperate kanji to other study apps in order to make lists to remember them. There are 4 swipe directions I think and this would make a great addition to the three comands already available 😊
pretty poor results. this is supposed to save you from "drawing each kanji while reading manga" but i find myself doing exactly that on top of struggling with the bad controls. just stick to the old fashioned way everyone. this ain't it yet.
Really fantastic software, though it gets rough with anything that's tilted, or in a diff colour or maybe a bolder font. It could also use better furigana detection, since sometimes it thinks furi is part of kanji in vertical blocks. Perhaps an ability to block out areas from the search would help.