Hanzi Annotator

Show pronunciation above Chinese characters on any page — Pinyin, Zhuyin, Wade-Giles, IPA and more. Self-contained, no setup.

Hanzi Annotator shows pronunciation above Chinese characters (Hanzi) on any web page, so you can read Mandarin without stopping to look up every reading. Turn it on and each Chinese character gets a small annotation above it showing how it's pronounced. It works everywhere — news sites, Wikipedia, blogs, social media, online dictionaries — and updates live as you browse. Click any character to see its dictionary definition and HSK level, right inline. WHY IT'S DIFFERENT • Self-contained — no companion app, no other extensions, no account. Install and it just works. • Fully offline — the pronunciation engine, dictionary and HSK data are all bundled. Nothing you read is ever sent anywhere. • Context-aware — resolves polyphonic characters (多音字) by reading them in context, not one character at a time. • 13 transcription systems — far beyond plain Pinyin. CLICK TO DEFINE Click any character and a small card shows its reading, a color-coded HSK difficulty badge, and its dictionary definition (CC-CEDICT) — fully offline, nothing sent anywhere. TONE COLORS Optionally color each reading by its tone so tones are visible at a glance. Choose how the tone is shown — colored text, a soft halo, an underline, or a dot — and pick a palette, including a colorblind-safe one. TRANSCRIPTION SYSTEMS Pinyin (with tone marks), Pinyin (toneless), Zhuyin Fuhao / Bopomofo, Wade-Giles, Yale (Mandarin), Tongyong Pinyin, IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), Ukrainian (Academic), Palladius (Russian Cyrillic), EFEO (French), Lessing-Othmer (German), Korean Hangul, and Katakana (Japanese, approximate). Each system has an in-popup reference card citing the sources it's based on, so you can see exactly how the romanization is derived. HOW TO USE 1. Click the toolbar icon. 2. Toggle "Annotations" on. 3. Choose your transcription system. Annotations appear instantly. Switching systems re-renders the page live — no reload. Hover any annotation to see the original Pinyin, or click a character for its definition and HSK level. Use the per-site switch to turn it off on individual sites. GREAT FOR • Mandarin learners reading native material • Anyone who recognizes characters faster than they can type them into a dictionary • Speakers of Ukrainian, Russian, French, German, Japanese or Korean who want readings in a familiar script PRIVACY No data collection. No tracking. No network requests. Everything runs locally in your browser.