The Kanshudo Blog
The new and improved Component Builder
The Kanshudo Component Builder has been a key feature of Kanshudo since very early on in Kanshudo's history. Its core function is the ability to look up a kanji based on any combination of its components - the standard 'radical' used in traditional dictionaries, or any other component or combination of components. Since it is much easier to identify components than to find a kanji in a long list, this approach to looking up kanji is very efficient.
The original Component Builder introduced a key innovation which made the process even faster: the ability to identify a component just by typing its name. Once you know the names of standard components such as 'tree' (木) or 'sun' (日), you could simply type the name rather than searching for the component visually.
Today we are delighted to introduce another leap forward: the ability to look up any of the 400+ components used in Joyo kanji simply by drawing it. Just fire up the Component Builder, identify the components in your kanji, choose the easiest, and draw it in the drawing area! Drawing a component is much easier than drawing a complex kanji, and our system, which is built on a custom neural net designed by Kanshudo, will recognize any of the components used in Joyo kanji.
To get started, click here to open up the Component Builder in Quick Search.
For more details, read our detailed how-to guide to the Component Builder.
Kanshudo is your AI Japanese tutor, and your constant companion on the road to mastery of the Japanese language.
To get started learning Japanese, just follow the study recommendations on your Dashboard.
You can use Quick search (accessible using the icon at the top of every page) to look up any Japanese word, kanji or grammar point, as well as to find anything on Kanshudo quickly.
For an overview, take the tour.
