Hanja Reading Workbench
Enter a short passage to inspect Unihan kHangul candidates and exact Hanja substrings from 22,074 text headwords in the National Institute of Korean Language Basic Korean Dictionary. The 2026-09-19 dictionary file is fetched only after input and verified by SHA-256 before use. Even the same written word such as 行列 can mean 행렬 or 항렬. You choose the intended sense for each occurrence; the tool never infers a contextual answer. A dictionary-only (D) syllable appears only in a matching word and still needs selection. Unihan kDefinition is a Chinese-centered English reference gloss, not a Korean hun.
Key features
- 2,781 Unihan 17.0.0 characters with pinned source hash and Unicode-3.0 license
- 22,074 CC BY-SA 2.0 KR dictionary headwords, loaded on demand and SHA-256 checked
- Exact Hanja substring hints, including overlapping matches and distinct senses for a spelling
- Source-marked readings selected independently for every character occurrence; D candidates only within matched words
- Unresolved and unsupported markers preserved in both outputs
- Text and JSON v3 export with selected senses, candidate readings and attribution
- Manual contextual decisions only; no word segmentation, pronunciation rules or accuracy claim
How to use
- Enter up to 200 Unicode characters or load an example, then wait for the checked dictionary file to load.
- Review exact word matches, including any overlaps or multiple senses for one spelling.
- Choose the intended headword sense to apply its written syllables at that occurrence.
- Select any remaining polyphonic or dictionary-only reading per character position.
- Inspect question and unsupported markers before exporting text or JSON.
Use cases
- Draft character-level readings for a short classical passage
- Compare occurrences of the same polyphonic character in different contexts
- Keep unsupported and undecided characters visible for later review
- Export a reading-choice record with its source version
Frequently asked questions
Does it know the correct reading from sentence context?
No. Exact matching finds potential headwords but cannot decide their meaning in a sentence. You must select the sense and any ambiguous reading yourself.
Does it cover every Hanja character and word?
No. The pinned Unihan file contains 2,781 selected characters; the derived 2026-09-19 Korean dictionary file contains 22,074 all-Hanja origins with aligned Hangul headwords. Other Han characters remain unsupported unless an exact matched word supplies a dictionary-only candidate.
What does a D reading mean?
D means the syllable comes only from an exactly matched Basic Korean Dictionary headword, not from that character’s Unihan kHangul record. It does not carry over to the same glyph elsewhere and is not selected automatically.
What do the source codes 0, 1, E, N and X mean?
They are Unihan kHangul source identifiers: KS X 1001, KS X 1002, education Hanja list, personal-name Hanja list and formerly assigned source. They are not frequency or contextual confidence scores.
Is the English gloss a Korean meaning for each reading?
No. Unihan kDefinition mainly describes modern written Chinese. Dictionary word meanings come from the Korean headword data; neither source provides an automatic sentence-level answer.
Are my passage and choices uploaded?
No. Only the same-site static dictionary file is fetched after input. Its bytes are hash-checked in memory; passage processing and exports remain in the browser.
Privacy
Your passage and selections stay in this browser tab. The same-site dictionary data file is downloaded after you enter text; your text is never sent with that request or posted to an API. Export runs only when you press a button.
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