Disclosed embodiments relate to a character detection method and apparatus. In some embodiments, the method includes: using an image including an annotated word as an input to a machine learning model; selecting, based on a predicted result of characters inside an annotation region of the annotated word predicted and annotation information of the annotated word, characters for training the machine learning model from the characters inside the annotation region of the annotated word predicted; and training the machine learning model based on features of the selected characters. This implementation manner implements the full training of a machine learning model by using existing word level annotated images, to obtain a machine learning model capable of detecting characters in images, thereby reducing the costs for the training of a machine learning model capable of detecting characters in images.