Zhongwen Reader is a lightweight hover dictionary plugin for Obsidian that makes it easy to read Chinese text and build your vocabulary, all from within your notes.

⚠️ Installation Note: If cloning this repo, the folder in .obsidian/plugins must be named zhongwen-reader, not obsidian-zhongwen-reader.

✨ Features

• 🔍 Hover Dictionary: Instantly see simplified, traditional, pinyin, and definitions (from CC-CEDICT) on hover.
  • 🗣️ Bopomofo Support (注音): Contributed by @wongjustin99. (Coming to Community Plugins soon!)
• 💡 HSK Highlighting: Toggle color-coded vocab highlighting by HSK level.
• 📥 Save Words: Use the command palette to save hovered words to a vocab list.
  • 🧠 Sentence Capture: Optionally save example sentences when adding vocab.
• 📋 Sidebar View: See vocab from the current note and jump to word locations.
• 🗃️ Flashcard Export: Export saved vocab as markdown flashcards for the Spaced Repetition plugin.

⚠️ Note: Example sentences are saved to vocab.json but not yet used in flashcards or sidebar. Support coming soon.

🛠️ How to Use

• Hover over any Chinese word (in Edit or Preview mode) to see a popup.
• Save a word from the hover popup using the command palette.
• Open the 📘 Sidebar View to browse words in the current note.
• Use the palette to Export Vocab to Flashcards or toggle HSK highlights.

⚙️ Settings

• Save Sentence: Automatically capture the sentence where the word appears.

🧾 Data & Storage

• Must be connected to wifi on first activation only, the plugin downloads the following files and subsequently functions offline:
  • cedict_ts.u8 – Chinese-English dictionary (9.7MB, from CC-CEDICT)
  • hsk-vocab.json – HSK word lists (54KB)
• Saved vocab is stored in /plugins/zhongwen-reader/vocab.json
• Example entry

{
  "simplified": "弯月",
  "traditional": "彎月",
  "pinyin": "wan1 yue4",
  "definitions": [
    "crescent moon",
    "crescent shape"
  ],
  "addedAt": "2025-04-07T17:29:18.497Z",
  "exampleSentences": [
    "弯月相同弯刀刺上林端。"
  ]
}

You can delete these files manually anytime. If you delete vocab.json your saved vocab will be lost. A future release will add cleanup options in settings.

🐛 Bugs & ⭐ Feature Requests

Found a bug?

1. Open a GitHub issue
2. Include:

• What happened
• How to reproduce it
• Your system info (Obsidian version, OS, plugin version)
• Screenshots or errors (if applicable)

Want a feature?

1. Open a GitHub issue with a title starting with Feature Request: and a short summary. In the description:
2. Explain the functionality you'd like to see
3. Include your use case and why it would help

📦 Coming soon

• Export to Anki .apkg
• Toggle vocab sidebar
• Database-style vocab view
• Built-in spaced repetition with cloze support
• Improved tooltip layout and customization
• HSK word data with highlights (like Du Chinese)