CRX id
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Description from extension meta
Great tool for learning Chinese. Includes links to Chinese Grammar Wiki. Supports adding words to Skritter.
Image from store
Description from store
The most popular Chinese popup dictionary. 100,000 active users worldwide. Quick, easy and simple to use. Includes useful tools for learners of Mandarin Chinese.
(The source code is available on GitHub: https://github.com/cschiller/zhongwen)
HIGHLIGHTS
- Look up more than 100,000 words an expressions while reading Chinese web sites just by pointing at the words with your mouse.
- Includes links to grammar and usage notes for more than 400 keywords
- Skritter users can add new words to their study list with a simple keystroke.
- Save words to a built-in word list
- Create Anki flashcards by importing the text file exported from the built-in word list
- Easily look up example sentences on tatoeba.org
HOW TO USE
After installing the extension it can be turned on and off by clicking on the little icon in the upper right-hand corner of the browser. When it is activated, the word "ON" is displayed in red over the icon of the extension. Otherwise the extension is inactive.
After activating it, simply go to a web page in Chinese and hover over the Chinese characters with your mouse to see a pop-up window open up showing the English translation along with the Pinyin romanization using the following colors: red = 1st tone, orange = 2nd tone, green = 3rd tone, blue = 4th tone. If simplified and traditional differ, then the simplified character is shown first.
If you're typing Chinese text, like an email, for example, simply hovering over the characters might not work. In that case, simply hold down the Alt-key on your keyboard while hovering over the Chinese characters you just typed. In most cases, this will bring up the translation. This way you can proofread what you just typed.
FEATURES
- Supports both traditional and simplified characters.
- Includes the current version of the widely used CC-CEDICT Chinese English dictionary with more than 100,000 entries.
- Displays Hanyu Pinyin along both the simplified and traditional characters.
- Learners of Chinese can choose a large font size for the Chinese characters to help them clearly identify and memorize the different characters, especially those with a large number of strokes. On the options page of the extension you can choose between a large and a small font size.
- As a learning aid it uses different colors for displaying the Pinyin syllables, depending on the tone of the Chinese character. The color scheme is the same as the one used by Skritter. Tone coloring can be deactivated on the options page.
- Can be turned on and off with a single mouse-click.
- Highlights the characters whose translation is displayed in the popup window.
- Also supports keyboard navigation for translating the next character, the next word, or the previous character.
- Bopomofo (Zhuyin) can be activated on the extension's options page.
EXTRAS
- Built-in Skritter support: Directly add words to a Skritter vocab list for studying. Just hit "s" on the keyboard.
- Built-in word list that you can add your words to. Just type "r" to remember a word when the popup is shown, "Alt+W" to open the word list. Words can be exported from the word list to a file.
- Look up example sentences on tatoeba.org by simply typing "t" while the popup window is shown.
- Provides keyboard shortcuts 'Alt+1', 'Alt+3', 'Alt+4', 'Alt+5' and 'Alt+6' for looking up selected text in other online dictionaries (nciku, Dict.cn, iCIBA, MDBG and JuKuu).
- In order to save a word to the internal word list, press "r" (for "remember") on your keyboard. To display the word list, use Alt+w, or "Open word list" from the context menu (right-click on the page). On the word list page, you can select the words you want to export to a file. You can then import them into other learning tools, like Anki.
KEYBOARD NAVIGATION
For power users: When reading an entire paragraph, you can easily navigate to the next word by hitting 'n' on the keyboard. The 'b' key takes you back to the previous character. You can also navigate to the next character (not the next word) by using the 'm' key.
In addition, you can move the popup window around using the 'x' and the 'y' key, or move it to one of three alternate locations using the 'a' key.
COPY TO CLIPBOARD
You can copy the dictionary entry of the currently selected characters to the clipboard by using the 'c' key on your keyboard. This is useful if you want to paste this data into a spreadsheet, for example. Each entry appears on a separate line, and the individual parts a dictionary entry consists of are tab separated, so they appear nicely aligned in separate rows and columns when pasting them into a spreadsheet.
Note that using this copying method (using just 'c') differs from the standard copy-to-clipboard shortcut (Ctrl+C or Command+C) which would copy only the selected Chinese characters without the English translation.
INPUT FIELDS AND TEXT AREAS
Zhongwen also works in input fields and text areas. Simply hold down the Alt-key on your keyboard to see the dictionary entires, for example when composing an email.
Latest reviews
- (2023-07-23) DVO: Must have.
- (2023-04-03) Jack: Fundamental for learners of Chinese.
- (2023-01-07) Leon: As a Chinese learner, I love this extension so much. Thank you!
- (2022-11-28) awe lotta: Just got it, seems pretty cool. But the method to activate is rather clunky. I would prefer if it added an option to the right-click menu. But the way it is right now may prove to be useful, since I know very few characters.
- (2022-08-30) Luke Thompson: Such a useful app. I've been using this addon for years to learn Chinese. I learned to read Chinese just by using this app.
- (2022-07-29) Yifang Xue: Literally incredible. I'm a Chinese person who grew up in the West and so I know spoken Chinese but my written knowledge is still shaky. This extension is so simple to use but so powerful. It provides all the information I need at a glance. I really love the colour-coding pinyin for easy reading and the example phrases option. Overall, this is easily one of the best extensions I've ever used in terms of doing its job and doing it well
- (2022-07-20) plautus egal: not all pin yin is correct, but i dont knopw how to report it
- (2022-06-02) Hasen 6: Great plugin that I've used for years but never took the time to review. Couldn't live without it and use it all the time.
- (2022-05-24) Craig B: A+
- (2022-05-18) Llamacorn: its not working well with pdf in dropbox
- (2022-04-17) It's just Max: Not working anymore on Google Docs after the latest update.
- (2022-03-04) N. L.: Sadly, it does not work anymore.
- (2022-02-24) Luana Lemos: Great tool! I really love it. It's so useful. The Grammar hints just pressing G to go to the Gramma wiki page is amazing.
- (2022-02-02) Careen Tan: I really love this extension but recently this extension is not working in Google doc anymore, because of google updated their platform, this app should keep up to date to match with the google platform.
- (2022-01-18) Careen Tan: I find this app this very useful, but recently it is not working for Google Doc, I scroll this to google doc chinese characters, it didn't pop up the meaning.
- (2022-01-06) Megan Burnett: Was a good app but apparently no longer works
- (2022-01-06) bo xiao: nice plugins
- (2021-12-28) Becca: I have been using this tool for years and all of a sudden it does not work on Google Docs anymore, which was mainly where I was using it. I have tried opening new docs, changing the font, uninstalling and re-installing all to no avail. It's such a shame because it was so useful. Still useful for webpages, but not what I need it for mostly.
- (2021-11-01) Irwan Santoso: The single best extension for learning to read Chinese, has similar function like NJStar software. I went from unable to read Mandarin newspaper to being able to read it.
- (2021-10-10) Son Dang: Great extension, been using for years and loved it !!!
- (2021-10-09) Pascal Dreier: Fantastic add-on. Works like a charm, is fast and reliable, and even identifies rare and uncommon words with ease.
- (2021-09-23) julian zhang: Overall great and really useful. However, it sometimes doesn't work in Google Docs (in some Docs but not others, with no observable difference in the Doc settings). It seems you can get around this by starting a new Google Doc, but you can't always do that (e.g., a shared Doc). Toggling the extension and reinstalling did not work. If anyone knows how to fix, please let me know.
- (2021-09-16) Asteria Black: very good tool and easy to use
- (2021-09-05) Random Guy: This is very handy for learners of Chinese. Really love it!
- (2021-08-24) Vivian Lam: It suddenly stopped working on my Google docs...
- (2021-08-20) Joshua Kosasih: really good! learning chinese is now more effortless than ever
- (2021-08-14) Eikosi Lover: awesome extension I'm in chinese class and I'm not the best at reading in chinese. This help me a lot. Thank you to who ever made this extension.
- (2021-08-07) Aenkyrr: I love it. It works perfectly, looks nice and clear, translates words as well as single characters. The dictionary is good, too. It gives you all the relevant meanings in a concise form, translates stuff like names and titles, and even provides brief information about people, internet platforms and so on. Remembering words and exporting them to flashcards is something I use a lot, too. I even got a paid tool to do the thing, but this one works better. There's even a shortcut to open a corresponding grammar article when a particle is selected. Together with Pleco, it's the best thing I ever used to learn Chinese!
- (2021-04-27) Manuel Araoz: Just amazing, thanks!!
- (2021-03-31) Free Zhu: 尝试了几个，这个应该是最方便的
- (2021-02-09) Zach Littrell: An essential extension for any Chinese learner of any level! It's extremely useful, and I love that it'll recognize common phrases and idioms, while still allowing you to see the literal definition of each character. I've used this for years and would be lost without it.
- (2021-01-28) Andrea Olivieri: Nice idea, it would be a really useful extension but it rarely works... very unstable, not recommended
- (2021-01-18) William Nathanael: Excellent, but could you add an option to reduce the popup delay?
- (2020-12-24) frosty cube: thank you!! super helpful
- (2020-10-21) David Bean: Really useful - the Skritter interaction is a handy tool!
- (2020-10-10) Axel Borgia: Pleeese, could you add http://zhongwen.com/.com and https://hanziyuan.net/ within the look-up shotcuts? Thank you guys for this great extension.
- (2020-10-03) P W: I love that this can cover both simplified and traditional Chinese, and can convert to pinyin and bopomofo and give english definition. As someone who learned traditional and bopomofo first, this helps alot its just a character I don't recognize in Simplified but know in Traditional. It does a decent job with idioms and slang, but feels like it misses some. It is probably hard to keep up with just like how slang is ever-evolving in English too and there is so many, but it would be appreciated if it maintained efforts here too。 An example was 冒个泡 which I could read just fine and understood the literal translation but needed to actually search to understand it is used on context for a quiet person to suddenly speak up/make an appearance for a bit
- (2020-09-02) J.J. Lee: Still okay, but not what i have in mind
- (2020-08-25) cita pratiwi: wow!
- (2020-08-06) Châu Vũ: Extremely handy and helpful, especially when I find myself in situations that require skimming through hundreds of pages of classical Chinese obscurity, or just very specific expertise-level jargons across various fields. I've been using this extension for 4 years now, and still counting.
- (2020-04-16) Nate C: best mandarin translator thus far for reading novel and articles
- (2020-01-31) Jessica Zhou: Very useful and convenient for when you need it. Won't get in the way of your usual browsing, but very helpful when reading large blocks of Chinese! Good with general knowledge, too - like historical figures or famous celebrities.
- (2020-01-22) Maria Gabriela Patiño Pisani: Muy Útil
- (2020-01-02) Karina Bao: This extension is amazing! I use it everyday. I wish I could venmo the developers some money for their efforts!
- (2019-12-12) Sitou Dien: Works for me. Can you please add cantonese.
- (2019-12-10) Daniela Sat: Perfect! Until it broke.. I need it back ... TToTT please fix it youll be my heroes!! Seems like theres not many people studing chinese in the world, since the other coments are from 2014... But please please please Man, back to using pleco on the phone... I kinda liked this... flow of going trought the internet in another laguage with instant trasnaltion.... Please fix it my eternat thanks to whoever does it, like real, ill make sure you get an unicorn gifted to you or something I promise
- (2019-11-10) Kim Chung: Excellent range of vocabulary and easy to use.
- (2019-09-07) Iris Song: This is one of the most useful tool for learning or teaching Mandarin Chinese. I highly recommend it!
- (2019-08-18) Emma L: Was amazing but in the last few days it stopped translating phrases (more than one character) and is only translating single characters. Any way to solve this?
- (2019-08-09) Yo Yo Fu: Love this extension, have been using it for years!