ZiPinYin - Chinese Pinyin Tool

Select Chinese text on any webpage to see pinyin, definitions, and translations.

ZiPinYin is a Chinese reading assistant that works on any webpage. Click any Chinese word to see its pinyin and definition, plus a natural English translation of the surrounding sentence — in a clean popup that stays out of your way. How it works: 1. Hover over Chinese text on a webpage and the word under your cursor highlights. 2. Click a word and a popup opens with the chosen word's pinyin and definition on top, and the full-sentence translation and pinyin underneath. (Esc or "x" to exit) 3. (Optional) Connect an LLM provider for natural sentence translations and context-aware definitions. Note: Popup can also be pulled via "Show Pinyin and Translation" from context menu or keyboard shortcut Alt+Shift+P. Core features: Look up any word with one click Hover to see where the word starts and ends, click to open the popup with the word's pinyin, definition, and a translation of the surrounding sentence. Click another word in the same sentence and the popup retargets without losing what's there. Works offline, upgrades with AI The built-in dictionary runs instantly with no setup needed. With AI, you get natural sentence translations plus context-aware definitions — polyphonic characters get the right reading, idioms come out as idioms instead of literal word-for-word. Pick your pinyin style Tone marks (hàn yǔ), tone numbers (han4 yu3), or none — your call. Hear it spoken A speaker button on the popup reads the highlighted sentence aloud, with the highlight following along word by word so you can keep your place. OCR for any image based word recognition. Drag a rectangle over any non-selectable Chinese characters and the recognized text drops into the same lookup popup. Build a vocabulary as you read Hit "+ Vocab" on any word and the pinyin and the meaning that fit that sentence are saved together. Recent saves show in the popup's "Recents" tab; the full list lives in the Library. Read Chinese books and documents in-browser Open files directly inside the extension and use the same click-to-lookup over them. Multiple bookmarks per book, a table of contents, and reading-position memory are all included, with a recent-files list so you can pick up where you left off. See your vocabulary at a glance Sort saved words by frequency, recency, or alphabet. Words group into review buckets — confident / needs improvement / not yet reviewed — so what needs work is obvious. Export to a file with all your vocab or import a backup any time. Flashcards with spaced review Sessions of 10, 20, 50, or all due cards. Flip a card to see pinyin, definition, and an example sentence; mark right or wrong. Wrong answers come back; familiar words drop out of rotation so you stop drilling what you already know. Settings: - Choose your LLM provider and model (or use fully offline) - Pick your pinyin style: tone marks, tone numbers, or no tones - Adjust overlay font size (12px to 24px) - Switch between auto, light, dark, or sepia theme - Toggle AI Translations and TTS on or off - Toggle "Auto-show overlay on text selection" off to silence hover/click and only invoke the popup via the right-click menu or Alt+Shift+P All vocabulary, bookmarks, and settings are stored locally in your browser. No data is sent anywhere except to your chosen LLM provider when AI Translations are enabled.