unofficial-jisho-api

This module encapsulates the official Jisho.org API and also provides kanji and example search features that scrape Jisho.org. This module is intended for server-side use cases. It might be possible to use this module in a browser application, but you are likely to encounter CORS errors, and would need to use a proxy server to circumvent them.

Installation

In a Node.js project:

npm install unofficial-jisho-api

Basic usage

Below are some basic examples. There's more detailed documentation here.

Word/phrase search (provided by official Jisho API)

This returns the same results as the official Jisho.org API. See the discussion of that here.

import JishoAPI from 'unofficial-jisho-api';

const jisho = new JishoAPI();

jisho.searchForPhrase('日').then(result => {
  console.log(result);
});

Kanji search

import JishoAPI from 'unofficial-jisho-api';

const jisho = new JishoAPI();

jisho.searchForKanji('語').then(result => {
  console.log('Found: ' + result.found);
  console.log('Taught in: ' + result.taughtIn);
  console.log('JLPT level: ' + result.jlptLevel);
  console.log('Newspaper frequency rank: ' + result.newspaperFrequencyRank);
  console.log('Stroke count: ' + result.strokeCount);
  console.log('Meaning: ' + result.meaning);
  console.log('Kunyomi: ' + JSON.stringify(result.kunyomi));
  console.log('Kunyomi example: ' + JSON.stringify(result.kunyomiExamples[0]));
  console.log('Onyomi: ' + JSON.stringify(result.onyomi));
  console.log('Onyomi example: ' + JSON.stringify(result.onyomiExamples[0]));
  console.log('Radical: ' + JSON.stringify(result.radical));
  console.log('Parts: ' + JSON.stringify(result.parts));
  console.log('Stroke order diagram: ' + result.strokeOrderDiagramUri);
  console.log('Stroke order SVG: ' + result.strokeOrderSvgUri);
  console.log('Stroke order GIF: ' + result.strokeOrderGifUri);
  console.log('Jisho Uri: ' + result.uri);
});

This outputs the following:

Found: true
Taught in: grade 2
JLPT level: N5
Newspaper frequency rank: 301
Stroke count: 14
Meaning: word, speech, language
Kunyomi: ["かた.る","かた.らう"]
Kunyomi example: {"example":"語る","reading":"かたる","meaning":"to talk about, to speak of, to tell, to narrate, to recite, to chant, to indicate, to show"}
Onyomi: ["ゴ"]
Onyomi example: {"example":"語","reading":"ゴ","meaning":"language, word"}
Radical: {"symbol":"言","forms":["訁"],"meaning":"speech"}
Parts: ["口","五","言"]
Stroke order diagram: https://classic.jisho.org/static/images/stroke_diagrams/35486_frames.png
Stroke order SVG: https://d1w6u4xc3l95km.cloudfront.net/kanji-2015-03/08a9e.svg
Stroke order GIF: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mistval/kotoba/master/resources/images/kanjianimations/08a9e_anim.gif
Jisho Uri: https://jisho.org/search/%E8%AA%9E%23kanji

Example search

import JishoAPI from 'unofficial-jisho-api';

const jisho = new JishoAPI();

jisho.searchForExamples('日').then(result => {
  console.log('Jisho Uri: ' + result.uri);
  console.log();

  for (let i = 0; i < 3; ++i) {
    let example = result.results[i];
    console.log(example.kanji);
    console.log(example.kana);
    console.log(example.english);
    console.log(JSON.stringify(example.pieces));
    console.log();
  }
});

This outputs the following:

Jisho Uri: https://jisho.org/search/%E6%97%A5%23sentences

日本人ならそんなことはけっしてしないでしょう。
にほんじんならそんなことはけっしてしないでしょう。
A Japanese person would never do such a thing.
[{"lifted":"にほんじん","unlifted":"日本人"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"なら"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"そんな"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"こと"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"は"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"けっして"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"しない"},{"lifted":"","
unlifted":"でしょう"}]

今日はとても暑い。
きょうはとてもあつい。
It is very hot today.
[{"lifted":"きょう","unlifted":"今日"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"は"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"とても"},{"lifted":"あつ","unlifted":"暑い"}]

日本には美しい都市が多い。例えば京都、奈良だ。
にほんにはうつくしいとしがおおい。たとえばきょうと、奈良だ。
Japan is full of beautiful cities. Kyoto and Nara, for instance.
[{"lifted":"にほん","unlifted":"日本"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"には"},{"lifted":"うつく","unlifted":"美しい"},{"lifted":"とし","unlifted":"都市"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"が"},{"lifted":"おお","unlifted":"多い"},{"lifted":"たと","unlifted":"例えば"},{"lift
ed":"きょうと","unlifted":"京都"},{"lifted":"","unlifted":"だ"}]

Word/phrase scraping

This scrapes the word/phrase page on Jisho.org. This can get you some data that the official API doesn't have, such as JLPT level and part-of-speech. The official API (searchForPhrase) should be preferred if it has the data you need.

import JishoAPI from 'unofficial-jisho-api';

const jisho = new JishoAPI();

jisho.scrapeForPhrase('谷').then((data) => {
  console.log(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2));
});

This outputs the following:

{
  "found": true,
  "query": "谷",
  "uri": "https://jisho.org/word/%E8%B0%B7",
  "tags": [
    "Common word",
    "JLPT N3",
    "Wanikani level 5"
  ],
  "meanings": [
    {
      "seeAlsoTerms": [],
      "sentences": [],
      "definition": "valley",
      "supplemental": [],
      "definitionAbstract": "",
      "tags": [
        "noun"
      ]
    },
    {
      "seeAlsoTerms": [],
      "sentences": [],
      "definition": "Valley",
      "supplemental": [],
      "definitionAbstract": "In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge. The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys. Most valleys belong to one of these two main types or a mixture of them, (at least) with respect of the cross section of the slopes or hillsides.",
      "tags": [
        "wikipedia definition"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "otherForms": [
    {
      "kanji": "渓",
      "kana": "たに"
    },
    {
      "kanji": "谿",
      "kana": "たに"
    }
  ],
  "audio": [
    {
      "uri": "https://d1vjc5dkcd3yh2.cloudfront.net/audio/b9ff4f25c7a20f0f39131b3e3db0cd19.mp3",
      "mimetype": "audio/mpeg"
    },
    {
      "uri": "https://d1vjc5dkcd3yh2.cloudfront.net/audio_ogg/b9ff4f25c7a20f0f39131b3e3db0cd19.ogg",
      "mimetype": "audio/ogg"
    }
  ],
  "notes": []
}

CommonJS

You can require this module as a CommonJS module. Just const JishoAPI = require('unofficial-jisho-api');.

Parsing HTML strings

You can provide the HTML responses from Jisho yourself. This can be useful if you need to use a CORS proxy or something. You can do whatever you need to do to get the HTML and then provide it to this module's parsing functions. For example:

Parse kanji page HTML

import fetch from 'node-fetch';
import JishoAPI from 'unofficial-jisho-api';

const jisho = new JishoAPI();

const SEARCH_KANJI = '車';
const SEARCH_URI = jisho.getUriForKanjiSearch(SEARCH_KANJI);

fetch(SEARCH_URI)
  .then((res) => res.text())
  .then((text) => {
    const json = jisho.parseKanjiPageHtml(text, SEARCH_KANJI);
    console.log(`JLPT level: ${json.jlptLevel}`);
    console.log(`Stroke count: ${json.strokeCount}`);
    console.log(`Meaning: ${json.meaning}`);
  });

Parse example page HTML

import fetch from 'node-fetch';
import JishoAPI from 'unofficial-jisho-api';

const jisho = new JishoAPI();

const SEARCH_EXAMPLE = '保護者';
const SEARCH_URI = jisho.getUriForExampleSearch(SEARCH_EXAMPLE);

fetch(SEARCH_URI)
  .then((res) => res.text())
  .then((text) => {
    const json = jisho.parseExamplePageHtml(text, SEARCH_EXAMPLE);
    console.log(`English: ${json.results[0].english}`);
    console.log(`Kanji ${json.results[0].kanji}`);
    console.log(`Kana: ${json.results[0].kana}`);
  });

Parse phrase page HTML

import fetch from 'node-fetch';
import JishoAPI from 'unofficial-jisho-api';

const jisho = new JishoAPI();

const SEARCH_EXAMPLE = '保護者';
const SEARCH_URI = jisho.getUriForPhraseScrape(SEARCH_EXAMPLE);

fetch(SEARCH_URI)
  .then((res) => res.text())
  .then((text) => {
    const json = jisho.parsePhraseScrapeHtml(text, SEARCH_EXAMPLE);
    console.log(JSON.stringify(json, null, 2));
  });

About

Permission to scrape granted by Jisho's admin Kimtaro: https://jisho.org/forum/54fefc1f6e73340b1f160000-is-there-any-kind-of-search-api

Warning: Understand that other than the searchForPhrase function, all of the functions in this package scrape the HTML of Jisho.org. As such, these functions may break without warning when updates are made to Jisho.org. These functions should not be used for anything mission critical (like your manned Japanese spaceflight program). That being said, they haven't broken yet in ~3 years, but the legends say Jisho.org is getting a big update at some point.

For bugs or requested additional data, feel free to open an issue on the Github repo.