About Yomi
Yomi turns any block of Chinese text into a readable version with pinyin above each word and meanings a tap away.
What it does
Reading in a language you are still learning breaks down on the words you cannot pronounce. Yomi fixes that by placing the pinyin directly above the original characters, so you keep reading the real script instead of a transliteration of it. Tap or hover any word and you get its meaning, plus a character-by-character breakdown.
How to use it
- Copy text from an article, chat, subtitle file or book.
- Paste it into the reader on the home page.
- Or paste, drop or upload a screenshot and the text is pulled out for you.
- Tap any word for its meaning; toggle reading, meaning and grammar layers.
Who it is for
Language learners reading native material, students working through textbook passages, travellers decoding signs and menus, and anyone who runs into foreign text online and wants to understand it without leaving the page.
Dictionary and accuracy
Meanings come from CC-CEDICT, an open dictionary with roughly 124,000 entries covering both simplified and traditional forms, plus a built-in list of modern slang and internet phrases. Readings are accurate for the vast majority of everyday text; rare words and unusual names can still be off.
CC-CEDICT is used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence; the full licence text is served alongside the data at /dictionaries/CC-CEDICT-LICENSE.txt. Pinyin readings use pinyin-pro (MIT).
Frequently asked questions
- Is Yomi free?
- Yes. Pasting and annotating text is free and unlimited, and no account is required.
- Does my text get sent anywhere?
- Typed and pasted text is annotated entirely inside your browser, so it never leaves your device. Only screenshot reading sends the image for text extraction.
- Which languages are supported?
- Mandarin Chinese, both simplified and traditional, with pinyin and CC-CEDICT meanings. More reading systems, including Cantonese jyutping, are planned.
- Can I use it on my phone?
- Yes. Yomi is built mobile-first, so you can copy text on your phone, paste it in and read straight away.
- Does it work offline?
- On the web, partly: the reader itself is cached after your first visit, and the definitions dictionary is cached the first time you read something. Until that download has happened once, an offline visit can show pinyin and word splitting but not full definitions. The installed iPhone app has no such gap — the dictionary ships inside it, so the first reading works in airplane mode.