Hover over Chinese characters for definitions, images, examples, visualizations, radicals, frequencies, HSK info, & more
Chinese Console - Popup Chinese-English Dictionary is a tool to help you read, explore, and better understand the Chinese characters in any web page on the web.
By hovering over words and characters you are interested in, detailed information will be shown in the console area. The information that Chinese Console shows includes:
- Mandarin Chinese-English Dictionary definitions
- Simplified and Traditional characters
- Pinyin tone pronunciation
- Animated stroke order digrams
- A list of example words that a character occurs in
- A list of similar characters (eg 大犬六穴太尢)
- Character radical composition information
- View images associated with the searched word
- Colorize all characters on the page by frequency in the language
- Colorize all characters on the page by frequency on the page
- A flexible layout (display in corners, or on left or right side
- Floatable mode, where a box of information follows your cursor
- Colorized themes, including light mode, dark mode, "morning", "ocean", "forest" & "candy"
- Minimized mode
- Navigate a history of searched words
- Search by typing interface
- HSK level information
- Configurable to display only info you want
- Global and Site-specific configuration
- Configurable hot-key (alt, ctl...) to activate console
You can color the characters on the page according to how common (green) or uncommon (red) the character is so you know how "important" the character is. Using this "distribution frequency" you can colorize characters by frequency in the language as a whole (based on a Chinese web corpus), or the page being viewed.
Another common way to know how "important" or "difficult" a character is is by using the HSK level (汉语水平考试 (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi ), Chinese Proficiency Test administered by the Hanban. Chinese Console
Characters are formed by radicals, and Chinese Console decomposes characters into radicals for better understanding. At the touch of a button you can view images associated with the word you've looked up to get a better idea of what that word means on the web. You can also customize where the console appears on the page so that your content is always easily viewable.
If you don't need to display some of this information the console can be configured to show only what you need. You can also maintain a separate configuration (position, and info display) both globally (all pages) and per-site if needed.
The console uses a 'hot-key' to activate it's searching, to stay out of the way of normal page interactions. This key is configurable by you in a variety of ways for both Mac and PC users.
ROADMAP
- Integrate Extension with a website backend so users can track their own words and pages.
CHANGELOG
Version 1.4.2
- Added animated stroke order diagrams for characters
Version 1.4.1
- Added colored theme support
Version 1.4.0
- Character information is now shown for sub-words and all characters. In previous version results for 共同体 would only show info for 共同体 and 共. In version 1.4 results will show 共同体, 共同, 共,同 and 体.
- A link to donate to support the project is now provided.
- Long words (5 chars or more) now show in smaller text, to prevent overlapping display.
Latest reviews
- (2022-09-26) Mihail Gor: It is a great plugin to learn Chineese and practice translation. Very lightweight and easy to use. Superusefull. Recommended 100%.
- (2022-09-19) Язык, словесность и культура Китая: Very nice and promising extension, it is evident there has been put a lot of though in the creation of it. I wish you would continue to make fellow Mandarin learners happy by updating and improving on your work. As a student with no money to go around, I can't do anything but encourage you with this review.
- (2021-06-20) Cao Anh: Great extension. But could you please update the Text to Speech feature! To read the selected text out loud. Thanks!
- (2021-05-02) Marios Levi: Great extension, however it does cause a bug on certain page where the Footer of the page gets stuck in the middle of the page and doesn't get affected by scrolling... To counteract it, I just set it to only run when I click the icon, rather than all sites.
- (2020-09-01) Will Taylor: Incredibly useful way to pick up Chinese characters from news sites like China Daily. Very intuitive, love it.
- (2020-08-23) Eileen Hinds: So glad I found this extension, it's the best thing I've seen for helping us Chinese language learners. Definitely a keeper.
- (2020-08-12) Cody Brock: Super useful extension. It gives all the information I want about the characters but isn't intrusive on the screen. I'm learning faster now, definitely recommended.
- (2020-07-17) Rachel Hinds: I love this extension for learning Chinese! It's super helpful for learning the characters, and it has a couple of features I haven't seen anywhere else. The character frequency feature lets me know which characters I should be focusing on learning first, and the app lets me choose where I want the visual interface to be on my screen...which is super helpful for navigating different types of sites. A+, loving it.
- (2020-07-09) Benjamin Moses Lieb: Super helpful as a Chinese-English dictionary, and for exploring Chinese characters!
Statistics
Installs
604
history
Category
Rating
4.9231 (13 votes)
Last update / version
2023-03-20 / 1.4.5
Listing languages
en