Guide

The card

Read real Chinese without leaving the page.

Point at any Chinese word. The card shows its Taiwan pinyin, how common it is, its meaning, the parts it is made of, and two example sentences picked so the other words are ones you know. Every sentence has play, copy, edit and save buttons.

Prefer it out of the way? Toolbar button → Show card → Alt: the card then opens only while you hold that key.

Stamps: 新 學 熟

Know at a glance what you know.

With a card open press 1 新 Fresh (just met), 2 學 Learning or 3 熟 Known. Press the same key again to clear it, 0 to remove the word. The colors show in the card, in subtitles and in your word list. Turn on Colors on every website in the toolbar menu and every page you read is colored too.

Select anything

Names, phrases and whole sentences have no dictionary entry. They still get a card.

Select the text and tap Alt, or right-click → Look up. You get its pinyin, a translation and the words inside it. Short ones (a name, a dish) can be stamped like any word.

YouTube subtitles

Watch what you like and understand it line by line.

Open a video with Chinese captions. Chinese and English lines appear over the video; hover a word for its card and the video waits for you. Hover the 中 switch in the player for how much of the video you know and the controls: A S D previous / replay / next line, R loop, Q shadowing (pause after each line so you can repeat it), E transcript with a "learn first" list.

AI subtitles (Gemini)

Most videos have no Chinese captions. Google's Gemini can write them, free, with your own key.

1. Open aistudio.google.com/apikey, sign in with a Google account and press Create API key. It is free.
2. Copy the key. In Chinese Brain: toolbar button → Settings → Gemini → paste → Check.
3. On a video without Chinese captions, hover the 中 switch and press Make subtitles with Gemini. Long videos arrive in parts.

The same key adds Write example sentences to cards that have fewer than two. Your key stays in your browser; the video's link (or the word) goes to Google only when you press the button.

Practice with AI

Your word list is the best prompt you have: the AI practices exactly the words you are learning.

Open your word list (or the dashboard) → Practice with AI → Copy prompt, and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini. You get a short story with your words, then a quiz, one question at a time.

For a regular tutor chat, Export → Download new gives a small file with only what changed since your last export (new words, new statuses, saved sentences). Hand it to the AI each week so it always knows where you are.

Word list

Everything you stamped, in one place.

Toolbar button → Word list. Filter by stamp, search, restamp, remove (with Undo). Import takes a list you already have (word⇥K per line); Backup saves everything to a file.

Sync and the dashboard

One list on every browser, and on your phone.

Settings → Account → Create account (email and password; free). Sign in on your other browsers and the lists merge. Your dashboard shows the same list on the web. Forgot the password? Forgot password? emails you a link. Everything works without an account too.

Shortcuts

Make the keys yours.

Settings → Shortcuts: click a key, press the new one. Alt+Shift+C switches word colors for the website you are on; Alt+Shift+A for every website.