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
- (2025-06-27) Jimij Kirkrik: One of the most useful tools for learning Chinese! Thank you, Christian Schiller!
- (2025-06-14) Menghun Sor: Excuse me I cannot open the words list with Alt + W, please help
- (2025-06-09) zoeynyp: this absolutely works on opera gx!! im obsessed with this plugin!!!!
- (2025-02-03) Sec Tan: Could have some more configurations, but this is already fantastic!
- (2024-12-04) L. C.: Efficient and simple. It became a must-have to me ! Thanks for this work
- (2024-12-01) Sofia ,: best for translating if u are intermediate on chinese
- (2024-11-07) Trt Shen: essential tool for chinese reader
- (2024-10-09) YanHeng Lin: The best
- (2024-09-21) A A: Useless now.
- (2024-08-30) Egon Pauli: It worked for a couple of months, then it stopped. It was perfect, but now google is saying "This extension may soon no longer be supported Remove or replace it with similar extensions from the Chrome Web Store." But I cannot find any alternative there.
- (2024-07-01) Anuj Shrestha: It seems to take time for it to work :) It is working properly. Thank you for this extension! Otherwise I would need to move back and froth with chrome and firefox as I need that google chrome translate feature too :)
- (2024-04-28) Kaiwen Wang: Has an issue where it causes duplication of text on pages even when there is no Chinese script
- (2024-04-21) Cookie Doodle: Doesn't work.
- (2024-03-23) Mohsin Zaman: Great extensions. Very useful, wish it was also available on Apple's Safari.
- (2024-03-09) Den Vortex: Great extension! Please, add the option to disable the character highlight when I select in with my mouse.
- (2024-01-29) Blue Beyer: Wonderful program! My one nit-pick is with the translation for 冬蟲夏草. It states that the latin name is Cordyceps sinensis, but this is sadly outdated. The fungus was reclassified to Ophiocordyceps sinensis in 2007. My suggestion is to change the definition to reflect this change.
- (2023-12-29) Kayleen 施春宇: Excellent! Saves so much time!
- (2023-12-20) Greg Ash: Has worked flawlessly for years.
- (2023-11-25) Lakshmikanth .V: It is a great extension. It helped me a lot to read chinese
- (2023-07-23) DVO: Must have.
- (2023-07-23) DVO: Must have.
- (2023-04-03) Jack: Fundamental for learners of Chinese.
- (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!
- (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.
- (2022-11-28) 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: 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.
- (2022-08-30) Luke: 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
- (2022-07-29) 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
- (2022-07-20) 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.
- (2022-06-02) 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+
- (2022-05-24) Craig B: A+
- (2022-05-18) Llamacorn: its not working well with pdf in dropbox
- (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.
- (2022-04-17) 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.
- (2022-03-04) 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.
- (2022-02-24) 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.
- (2022-02-02) 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.
- (2022-01-18) 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