👋 This project is a community-driven fork of Yomichan. The original developer quit and deleted Yomichan from extension stores. Our primary objective is to maintain the project, ensuring it remains functional on the most recent browser versions and that any bugs are fixed.
As requested by the original creator, the project has been given a new name: Rikaitan, in the style of the previous name.
Given this is a distributed effort, we wholeheartedly welcome any new contributors. Please feel free to look through the issue tracker, or join us on the DJT Matrix.
Rikaitan turns your web browser into a tool for building Japanese language literacy by helping you to decipher texts which would be otherwise too difficult tackle. This extension is similar to 10ten Japanese Reader for Firefox and Rikaikun for Chrome, but it stands apart in its goal of being an all-encompassing learning tool as opposed to a mere browser-based dictionary.
Rikaitan provides advanced features not available in other browser-based dictionaries:
- Interactive popup definition window for displaying search results.
- On-demand audio playback for select dictionary definitions.
- Kanji stroke order diagrams are just a click away for most characters.
- Custom search page for easily executing custom search queries.
- Support for multiple dictionary formats including EPWING via the Rikaitan Import tool.
- Automatic note creation for the Anki flashcard program via the AnkiConnect plugin.
- Clean, modern code makes it easy for developers to contribute new features.
- Migrating from Yomichan (legacy)
- Importing standardised and custom dictionaries
- Anki integration and flashcards creation
- Advanced options, including MeCab
- Frequently asked questions
- Keyboard shortcuts
Rikaitan is available for Firefox-based web browsers and Chromium-based web browsers. We recommend LibreWolf as your everyday web browser. Ungoogled-chromium is a good alternative.
Download from Firefox Browser add-ons:
Download from Chrome Web Store:
Note: chromium-web-store can be used to allow installing extensions directly from Chrome Web Store.
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Click the
Rikaitan button in the browser bar to open the quick-actions popup.
- The
cog button will open the Settings page. - The
magnifying glass button will open the Search page. - The
question mark button will open the Information page. - The
profile button will appear when multiple profiles exist, allowing the current profile to be quickly changed.
- The
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Import the dictionaries you wish to use for term and kanji searches, head over to the the dictionary docs to get set up! If you do not have any dictionaries installed or enabled, Rikaitan will warn you that it is not ready for use by displaying an orange exclamation mark over its icon. This exclamation mark will disappear once you have installed and enabled at least one dictionary.
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Webpage text can be scanned by moving the cursor while holding a modifier key, which is Shift by default. If definitions are found for the text at the cursor position, a popup window containing term definitions will open. This window can be dismissed by clicking anywhere outside of it.
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Click on the
speaker button to hear the term pronounced by a native speaker. If an audio sample is not available, you will hear a short click instead. You can configure the sources used to retrieve audio samples in the options page. -
Click on individual kanji in the term definition results to view additional information about those characters, including stroke order diagrams, readings, meanings, as well as other useful data.
To further enhance your Rikaitan experience, it's worth integrating with Anki, a spaced-repetition flashcard program to help solidify the words you encounter.
Required licensing notices for this project follow below:
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EDRDG License
This package uses the EDICT and KANJIDIC dictionary files. These files are the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, and are used in conformance with the Group's license. -
Kanjium License
The pitch accent notation, verb particle data, phonetics, homonyms and other additions or modifications to EDICT, KANJIDIC or KRADFILE were provided by Uros Ozvatic through his free database.
Rikaitan uses several third-party libraries to function. Below are links to homepages, snapshots, and licenses of the exact versions packaged.
| Name | Installed version | License type | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| @zip.js/zip.js | 2.7.32 | BSD-3-Clause | git+https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/zip.js.git |
| dexie | 3.2.4 | Apache-2.0 | git+https://github.com/dfahlander/Dexie.js.git |
| dexie-export-import | 4.0.7 | Apache-2.0 | git+https://github.com/dexie/Dexie.js.git |
| rikaitan-handlebars | 1.0.0 | MIT | n/a |
| parse5 | 7.1.2 | MIT | git://github.com/inikulin/parse5.git |
| wanakana | 5.3.1 | MIT | git+ssh://[email protected]/WaniKani/WanaKana.git |