japReader

Learning a language can be daunting, doubly so if its alphabet is different from the one of your mother tongue. Japanese is a popular one to study these days, and with so many resources available on the web, more and more people are eager to start learning it.

Of course, as with learning virtually any language, you'll still have to do most of the heavy lifting yourself. But it's reassuring to know that tools to help guide you along the way exist, and japReader might turn out to be a quite useful one in that regard. It's a Japanese translator, where the focus lies on understanding the characters of the language.

Designed to mainly offer a way for Japanese learners to study the language in a more seamless manner, this is a tool that can be used quite reliably for visual and light novels, as well as other media. The way the tool translates is by scanning your clipboard for Japanese text: once detected, it will automatically be translated within the app, without requiring you to do any pasting operation.

The translated text will appear in a resizable rectangle of sorts, which initially looks quite awkward. However, it seems it's been made this way to allow one to freely reposition the translations on their screen.

One of the parts that give Japanese its identity pertains to its alphabet: knowledge of the Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji characters is vital to learning the language. The software places a focus on this, as it features quite an intuitive way to analyze the meaning of the characters, highlighting each of them in the interface. Click on what you wish to know the meaning of, and the dictionary will pop up.

Detailed definitions will be presented in the dictionary, where you'll also be able to mark what you know, as well as listen to an enunciation of the selected character. Anki integration is available, but you'll need to install their app for the integration to work.

If you're looking to learn Japanese, and find yourself often reading visual and light novels, then japReader might be a useful addition to your machine, as it can help you better understand the language.