# Yomitan

9 Hacker News commenters recommended Yomitan and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A free browser extension that shows dictionary readings and definitions when you hover over Japanese words, so learners can read and look up terms without leaving the page.

## Why people recommend it

- Works with browser reading and OCR workflows (2 comments): "used OCR on manga pages and then Yomitan to hover over and see word definitions (in English)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46298094)) "The Yomitan+ttsu stack on desktop is unbeatable for learning by reading in my experience." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46416524))
- Japanese-to-Japanese dictionary support (2 comments): "I prefer to use a Japanese to Japanese dictionary when possible which I have as a browser extension" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46512519)) "Something similar to https://yomitan.wiki/ or https://jisho.org/search/kotoba would be preferred." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46297850))

## What people warn about

- Only PC setups mentioned by critics (1 comments): "a mediocre PC-only Ttsu + Yomitan + Anki setup" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46420964))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Learn Japanese contextually while browsing](https://hackerapproved.com/p/learn-japanese-contextually-while-browsing.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Yomitan", https://hackerapproved.com/p/yomitan/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).