Posted by Jonas

Rikaichan on Google Chrome (Rikaikun)

Published on February 22nd, 2010.

Rikaichan is a plugin for Firefox that lets you translate Japanese by hovering over words. When you hover a word you’ll get translations and readings, and if you hover a kanji and click enter, you’ll get info on it.

Rikaichan is the only plugin I use that I haven’t been able to replace in another browser. There’s LiveDictionary for Safari which isn’t free, and I didn’t like it when I used the 10-day free trial. So I’ve been forced to use Firefox for a heck of a long time. But now I’m very happy to announce Rikaikun! A port of Rikaichan for Google Chrome.

Rikaikun is a little behind Rikaichan, not everything has been ported just yet, but the essentials work. At the moment you can’t install the names dictionary, but I can live with that for a while.

Google Chrome is super fast compared to Firefox and there’s plenty of plugins for Chrome available now. So I really have no reason to stay with Firefox anymore, I’ve let the little fox eat on my processor for far too long. If Rikaichan or any other plugin is keeping you from switching, do check the Google Chrome Extensions site to make sure you’re not waiting for something that’s already there. I’ve had no issues with the beta for Mac OS X yet.

This is the perfect tool for people who study Japanese, they actually taught us to use it at my school, so by all means, give it a go!

Download Google Chrome.

Download Rikaikun.

Thanks to CDevil for letting me know about this port, follow him on Twitter!

  • Rene

    Thank you so much for the link! Rikaikun is so convenient and easy to use.

    • http://www.yonasu.com yonasu

      You’re welcome :) And yeah, I couldn’t imagine living without it!

  • Rene

    Thank you so much for the link! Rikaikun is so convenient and easy to use.

    • http://www.yonasu.com yonasu

      You’re welcome :) And yeah, I couldn’t imagine living without it!

  • WC

    I’ve been using Rikaikun for a while now and Rikaichan is definitely more polished, but Rikaikun does the job.

    I miss the keyboard shortcuts, and it seems harder to get Rikaikun to highlight the right word or portion of the word… And it’s harder to get it -not- to highlight something so you can read the rest of the page… But it’s good enough already.

    • http://www.yonasu.com yonasu

      Yeah Rikaichan is definitely more polished, but we’ll hopefully see more updates coming soon. I don’t use any keyboard shortcuts for Rikaichan so that doesn’t bother me. I’ve only used it for a day, but I hope it’ll keep on working well^^

  • WC

    I’ve been using Rikaikun for a while now and Rikaichan is definitely more polished, but Rikaikun does the job.

    I miss the keyboard shortcuts, and it seems harder to get Rikaikun to highlight the right word or portion of the word… And it’s harder to get it -not- to highlight something so you can read the rest of the page… But it’s good enough already.

    • http://www.yonasu.com yonasu

      Yeah Rikaichan is definitely more polished, but we’ll hopefully see more updates coming soon. I don’t use any keyboard shortcuts for Rikaichan so that doesn’t bother me. I’ve only used it for a day, but I hope it’ll keep on working well^^