Well the most distinguishable feature could be, Anime is animation produced in Japan; while cartoons are American or mabe rest of the world. Even though Anime is in Japanese, companies like Funimation, Viz, Sentai Filmworks, etc lincense them and release them by dubbing in English with subtitles for Japanese video text. For example, Tom and Jerry, Ben 10, Justice League, etc are cartoons while Fairy Tail, Bleach, Clannad, Soul Eater, etc are Anime.