Best Firefox Extensions For Learning Chinese

Copyfish uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to turn Chinese text in images, videos, and hard-coded subtitles into selectable text. This makes it easy to copy sentences for study or use the Zhongwen Popup Dictionary (also on this list) to look up words directly from video subtitles. Not sure how to use it? Watch our Copyfish tutorial.

Inkah is a browser extension designed to make reading and watching Chinese content easier without constantly leaving the page to look up unfamiliar words. It provides pop-up definitions, pinyin or zhuyin, sentence segmentation, text-to-speech, tone coloring, and support for Simplified and Traditional Chinese, along with tools for saving vocabulary and working with Chinese subtitles on sites such as YouTube and Netflix. Learners have praised Inkah for making native Chinese content more accessible while keeping dictionary lookups within the page. However, the Firefox version has not been updated since December 2022, so some features may no longer work reliably with current versions of Firefox or supported websites. It is available as a Chrome Extension that is updated more frequently.

LiuChan is a lightweight Chinese pop-up dictionary that provides instant definitions when you hover over Chinese text. It supports Simplified and Traditional Chinese, pinyin and zhuyin, customizable tone colors, and both Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation, including Jyutping. Its combined Mandarin and Cantonese support makes it particularly useful for learners who study or encounter both varieties of Chinese.

PeraPera Chinese Popup Dictionary provides instant pronunciation and definitions when you hover over Chinese text on a webpage, making it a simple option for reading Chinese online without repeatedly switching to a separate dictionary. It supports Mandarin as well as Cantonese and has received positive recommendations from Chinese learners for its straightforward, unobtrusive popup.

New Tong Wen Tang converts entire Chinese webpages between Simplified and Traditional Chinese, making it useful for learners who prefer one character set but want to read content written in the other. You can quickly convert a webpage and customize conversion settings to suit your needs. Because Simplified and Traditional Chinese do not always have a one-to-one character correspondence, automatic conversions may occasionally be inaccurate.

Video Speed Controller lets you speed up, slow down, rewind, and advance HTML5 videos using convenient keyboard shortcuts. For Chinese learners, it can be especially useful for listening practice, allowing you to slow down difficult dialogue or quickly rewind a section to hear it again. You can customize the playback-speed increments and shortcuts, and the extension can remember your preferred playback speed.

Yomitan Popup Dictionary is a powerful, highly customizable popup dictionary for language learners. Hover over words while browsing to instantly see definitions, pronunciation, and other dictionary information.

It supports 20+ languages, including Chinese, and lets you install multiple dictionaries to suit your needs. Other useful features include native pronunciation audio, built-in word search, offline use, and automatic Anki flashcard creation through AnkiConnect.

Look up more than 100,000 words while reading website just by pointing at the words with your mouse. Includes grammar and usage notes for more than 400 keywords. Skritter users can add new words to their study list with a simple keystroke. Allows you to 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 sample sentences on tatoeba.org.