Baro Japanese Dictionary

Can’t read a kanji? Draw it, right on the screen where you found it.

Baro Japanese Dictionary is an Android Japanese dictionary that opens a handwriting panel over the app you are already using, so you can write or say unfamiliar Japanese and look it up. You don’t need to know the reading: draw the shape you see, choose from the recognition candidates, then check the headword, reading, Korean or English meaning, and the kanji’s on’yomi, kun’yomi and stroke order before you return to what you were reading.

Translation can explain it. It cannot practice it for you. Baro keeps the effort that builds skill and removes the friction of looking things up, so the Japanese you look up becomes part of what you know.

■ How it works
1. Tap the Accessibility button or the Bubble button to open the handwriting panel over what you’re reading.
2. Draw the unknown characters as you see them. If recognition differs, pick another candidate.
3. Check the reading, meaning and stroke order, tap the same button to close the panel, and keep reading.

■ Features
• Japanese handwriting search and voice search through your device’s speech recognition
• Korean or English meanings
• Reverse lookup: write Korean or English to find Japanese
• On’yomi, kun’yomi and animated kanji stroke order
• Base forms of conjugated words and proper names such as people and places
• Follow-up search from headwords and words in the meanings
• Recent searches: up to 25 per dictionary and input language, restored with the handwriting left from that search
• Bottom panel in portrait, right-side panel in landscape
• Handwriting recognition and dictionary lookup work offline after the dictionary pack and required recognition models are downloaded
• Step-by-step tutorial for first-time users

■ Free and Premium
Every dictionary feature is free. There are no Premium reminders for the first 14 days after first launch; after that, a reminder appears every third time you open the handwriting panel. Tap “Continue free” to keep using the app. Premium is a one-time Google Play purchase that removes the reminder. It is not a subscription.

■ Permissions
• Display over other apps: shows the handwriting panel and results over other apps.
• Notifications: may be needed, depending on your Android version, for the ongoing notification that closes the panel or stops the Bubble button.
• Microphone: requested only when you use voice search.
• Accessibility (optional): used to open and close the panel with the system Accessibility button, insert the word you found into a text field, and analyze the screen behind the panel on your device to choose readable text colors. Baro is not an accessibility tool. Without Accessibility, you can still use handwriting and lookup with the Bubble button. Screen and text-field content is processed only on your device and is not saved or sent.

■ Privacy
Handwriting is recognized on your device, and lookups use the downloaded local database. Error diagnostics, app integrity checks, usage analytics (you can turn this off in Settings), dictionary pack downloads and system speech recognition may be processed off the device as described in the privacy policy.
Privacy policy: https://baro-dict.web.app/privacy

■ Requirements
Android 11 or later. The dictionary pack and recognition models must be downloaded on first use.

■ Data sources
• JMdict, KANJIDIC2 and JMnedict © Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group (EDRDG), CC BY-SA 4.0. The app’s Korean, English and proper-name dictionary databases are adaptations distributed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
• Stroke order data: KanjiVG © Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Japanese WordNet (NICT Japanese WordNet License), MeCab IPADIC, Japan Post postal code data
Full notices and licenses are in the app’s license screen and at https://baro-dict.web.app/licenses