Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool

Name: Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool
Rating: 4.75 (40 reviews)
Author: Christian Schiller

Official Firefox port of the Zhongwen Chrome extension (http://github.com/cschiller/zhongwen). Translate Chinese characters by hovering over them with the mouse. Includes internal word list, links to Chinese Grammar Wiki, tone colors, and more.

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Zhongwen is a powerful Firefox extension designed to enhance your Chinese language learning experience. By hovering over Chinese characters on any webpage, you instantly get translations from a comprehensive dictionary, including both simplified and traditional characters. It displays Hanyu Pinyin with colorful tone indicators to help reinforce pronunciation and tone recognition.

The extension features an internal word list to save vocabulary for later study, supports exporting to Anki and Skritter, and provides direct links to the Chinese Grammar Wiki for deeper understanding. Keyboard navigation enables quick lookup of individual characters or words without using the mouse. Additional functionalities include quick access to multiple online dictionaries and customizable settings to tailor your learning preferences. Zhongwen is an all-in-one tool for learners seeking seamless, interactive Chinese reading and study.

Add-on Education Productivity Developer Tools

By:

Daily users:

Rating:

Version:

5.16.0 Last updated: 2025-04-27

Version code:

5937909

Creation date:

2019-03-02

Risk:

Permissions:

contextMenus
tabs

Size:

5.19MB

URLs:

Website

Full description:

Source:

Firefox Add-ons Store

Data ingested on:

2025-07-20

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Ranking

# 1,022 ▲ 5

Other rankings

#41 in Language Support

#7 in learn keyword 41 ▲ 1

#19 in tool keyword 65

#20 in earn keyword 24

#38 in pull keyword 9

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User reviews

Zhongwen is highly praised for its ease and effectiveness in instantly translating Chinese characters, making it a valuable tool for learners. Users appreciate its simplicity, time-saving features, and the ability to save words. However, multiple users face issues with the lack of a toolbar icon, making activation unclear. Additionally, the extension sometimes redirects to other entries instead of providing immediate definitions, which can be inconvenient. Despite these drawbacks, many users rely on Zhongwen as an essential part of their Chinese language study toolkit.

Pros

Extremely useful for learning Mandarin Chinese by instantly translating characters.
Saves time and money compared to traditional dictionaries or translator pens.
Simple and effective tool for language learning.
Long-term reliability as users reinstall on new devices.
Allows saving words for future reference, enhancing learning.

Cons

Does not show an icon in the toolbar, making it difficult to access or activate.
Provides references like 'see another entry' instead of direct definitions, requiring additional lookups.
Some users report the add-on doesn't work immediately after installation and has no visible UI element.

Recent reviews

by Ng*****, 2025-06-21

Next to Pleco, THE most essential tool for anyone looking to learn Chinese.

by vi*****, 2025-05-22

by en*****, 2025-05-18

View all user reviews ›

Extension safety

Risk impact

Risk impact measures the level of extra permissions an extension has access to. A low risk impact extension cannot do much harms, whereas a high risk impact extension can do a lot of damage like stealing your password, bypassing your security settings, and accessing your personal data. High risk impact extensions are not necessarily malicious. However, if they do turn malicious, they can be very harmful.

Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool requires some sensitive permissions that could impact your browser and data security. Exercise caution before installing.

Risk impact analysis details

Critical Grants access to browser tabs, which can be used to track user browsing habits and history, presenting a privacy concern.
Critical ****** ****** ** *** ********* ****** * *********** ******** **** ** ** *** ******* *** ****** **** **** *** ******* *****
High ******* ******* **** *** ****** ***** *** ***** ** ******* **** ********* ********* ** * *********** *****

Risk likelihood

Risk likelihood measures the probability that a Firefox add-on may turn malicious. This is determined by the publisher and the Firefox add-on reputation on Firefox Add-ons Store, the amount of time the Firefox add-on has been around, and other signals about the Firefox add-on. Our algorithms are not perfect, and are subject to change as we discover new ways to detect malicious extensions. We recommend that you always exercise caution when installing a Firefox add-on.

Zhongwen: The Popular Chinese Learning Tool is probably trust-worthy. Prefer other publishers if available. Exercise caution when installing this add-on.

Risk likelihood analysis details

High This extension has low user count. Unpopular extensions may not be stable or safe.
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Low **** ********* *** ***** **** **** * ****** **** ***** ********** *** **** ****** ** ** ****** *** *****
Good **** ********* *** **** **** *******

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