Hanzi Annotator

About

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.

WHY IT'S DIFFERENT
• Self-contained — no companion app, no other extensions, no account. Install and it just works.
• Fully offline — the pronunciation engine and dictionary are 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.

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.

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.