Wizcom Quicktionary 2 Japanese Scanning Pen

This pen scanner is a brilliant idea and concept as a learning tool but for the asian languages falls short in regards to the LCD display resolution. The more difficult or higher stroke count japanese kanji characters are difficult to read since there are not enough pixels to accurately show the characters as if stroked by a brush. I ordered the pen with an English-Japanese, Japanese-English dictionaries and so all the prompts on the display are in Japanese. The directions come in english and the typical languages such as Spanish/German/French but not in Japanese. I took photos of all the prompts on the display and had a Japanese friend translate the prompt directions so I'm making headway to using the pen more skillfully. Accurate scanning is easier said than done as the scanner does not always depict the character or scans the before or after characters or parts of them. I realize I need to become more adept and accurate at scanning. The description says the pen will scan characters from very small to very large but it's very difficult to control the scan for very small printed characters and there are no controls that I'm aware of to adjust or fine tune the scanning laser. When it does work properly it is an amazing tool. I'm using it as a language tool and though it's not perfect it is still very well worth the money to me.

When I bought this product, I did not know a word of Japanese, but I desperately wanted to read my Japanese mooks (dolly clothes sewing tutorials) and not just look at the pictures and guess the sentences from the Kanji words (I'm Chinese and understands Kanji). Thus I got this pen, hoping it will help with my reading.It does not work the way it is supposed to at all. Scanning is easy, but the translation comes out in some English text and some Japanese text (which I don't understand in the first place). After spending 1 hour to scan 5 sentences, going back and forth trying to understand what the translated text means, it still doesn't make sense at all. In fact, I'm better off with guessing from the Kanji and looking at the pictures.Seller refunded my pen but I lost about USD$70+ on shipping. Seller was very responsive and fast in replying. Refund arrived promptly.I have since taken up Japanese classes and found out from my Japanese teacher (and from the 18 lessons I have attended so far) that no way this pen can work. Its just the way the Japanese language is structured; with luck, the pen may be able to give an English translation for a particular word u are looking for, but no way it is intelligent enough to translate the whole sentence for you. Jp is just too complicated to translate from a pen. Certain Jp words may mean certain meaning and have a totally different meaning when in another sentence. This pen may work in other languages, but from my personal experience, it does not for the Jp language.

It does not work on vertical text... most Japanese manga and other books have vertical text not horizontal. When I switched to scanning horizontal Japanese text .. it was still ackward and sometimes you had to scan twice...but then it worked about 50 percent of the time :-/ Speed of scanning was variable.. there is a knack to the angle and speed of your hand swiping it across the page but end the end it mattered very little... still only ever got 50-60 percent accuracy on horizonal text. The technology of OCR is cool and cutting edge but it just isn't 100 percent there yet. With more development, this could make learning Japanese vocabulary by way of reading Japanese books pretty effortless (except for memorization/grammer of course lol) Until then stick to reading online text where you can truly scan Japanese text effortlessly with Rikai Chan browser add on for Firefox.

Does not work as discribed