Japanese image translator, to English.

This Japanese image translator is the image translator with Japanese chosen as the language of the text and English as the target. Drop a picture and it reads the Japanese lines, translates each block to English, and redraws the picture with the English in place. You can change the target language, edit the reading, and edit the translation before you save.

How to use it

1. Drop the picture, or paste a screenshot with Cmd+V (Ctrl+V on Windows). Text in the picture is already set to Japanese.
2. Wait for Done. The Japanese reading data, about 2 MB, loads from this site the first time.
3. Look at the numbered boxes on the original. Each is a block of text that was found.
4. Fix anything wrong in the Text list, then press Download the picture (PNG).

Horizontal and vertical writing

Japanese can run across in lines or down in columns. Shop signs, menus, forms, receipts, apps and websites are mostly horizontal, and this reader handles those. Upright text, such as a book page, a vertical banner or the side of a sign, is not read by this page. For a few words, drag a box over them and type the reading by hand in the Text list, then the translation redraws.

Some old signs run horizontally from right to left. The reader goes left to right, so those can come out in the wrong order. Check the Text list and reorder the words by hand.

Furigana and small kana

Furigana are the small kana printed beside or above kanji. On a test menu they came out as a block of their own, above the word they belong to, and you can switch that block off in the list. If furigana ever show up as stray kana inside a line, delete them from the left box and the row translates again. Small kana such as ゃ, ゅ, ょ and っ are easy to mistake for their full size forms at low resolution, so a sharper photo helps more here than in other languages.

Kanji that look alike

A reader can swap kanji with close shapes. Check numbers and prices first, since a wrong digit changes the meaning: Japanese uses 一, 二, 三 for one, two and three, and 円 after a price. Place names and personal names are the other risk, because a machine translation may give the meaning of the characters instead of the name. Keep names as they are in the right box when you know them.

Which engine translates

Chrome on a computer uses its built-in translator. Other browsers download an open Japanese to English model once, about 115 MB, and keep it. Japanese to other languages than English goes through English in two steps in those browsers, so check it more closely. The page lists only the pairs your browser can do.

Short signs lose politeness

Japanese signs often use polite forms that English does not mark, so an English line can look blunter than the sign. Read it as a meaning, not as a tone. For a legal notice, a medical label or anything where a mistake costs money, ask a person who reads Japanese.

For the words only, see Image to text. For other languages, use the main image translator.