Read the menu
you can’t read.
Point your camera at Chinese text and pinyin appears above every character, instantly. No signal needed — recognition, readings and meanings all run on your phone.
Android 7.0+ · free every day · one-time $7.99 for Pro
Everything happens on the phone.
The recognition model, the Chinese–English dictionary and pinyin conversion are all bundled into the app. That means it works on a plane, in a basement restaurant, and in places a data plan doesn’t reach.
Live pinyin overlay
Readings track the characters as you move, coloured by tone so you can hear the shape of a word before you say it.
Tap to hear and keep
One tap plays the Mandarin audio, shows the meaning, and saves the word to your list for spaced review later.
Simplified and Traditional
Reads 简 and 繁 without a setting to flip, on signs, menus, packaging and screens.
Reader for pasted text
Paste a message, an article or song lyrics. Words mode annotates each word to tap; Lines mode puts a full pinyin line under each line, for singing along.
Spaced review, free
Saved words come back on a schedule that adapts to what you find hard. No subscription, no account.
Study sheets
Turn a stack of photos into a printable PDF reading sheet, or send your vocabulary to Anki with meanings attached.
Three taps from stuck to reading.
Point the camera
Hold your phone over the text. Pinyin appears above each character as the camera finds it — nothing to press, no photo to take.
Tap a word you want
A tap plays the audio, shows the English meaning, and keeps the word. Tapped the wrong one? The confirmation is an undo — tap it and the word is gone.
Review what you kept
Your saved words come back on a spaced schedule, so the ones you keep forgetting come back sooner. Export them any time.
Free every day. Unlimited with Pro.
The free tier is a daily allowance, not a trial — it doesn’t expire and it doesn’t nag. Pro removes every limit for one payment. No subscription, no ads, no account to make.
- 10 minutes of live camera a day
- Audio, meanings and tap-to-save
- Spaced review
- Reader for pasted text, no limit
- 100 saved words
- Your latest 10 photos in the app
- Plain-text export of your words
- No daily camera limit
- Unlimited saved words
- Your whole photo library in the app
- Translation that works with no connection
- PDF study sheets and Anki export
- Character anatomy and origin stories
- Dictionary tone palettes
- Free 3-day trial, from Settings
Your content never leaves your phone.
Not a policy written to be technically survivable — a description of how the app is actually built.
No accounts
There is no sign-up, no login and no profile. Nothing to leak, because there is nothing to store.
Nothing you read is sent
Camera frames, photos, saved words and translated text are processed on the device and stay there.
No ads, no trackers
No advertising ID, no third-party analytics SDK in the app, no cross-app tracking. This site sets no cookies either — which is why it isn’t asking you to dismiss a banner.
Usage counts are opt-in
Anonymous counts of which features get used are off unless you switch them on, so we can tell whether the free limits are fair instead of guessing.
Try it on your next menu.
Ten minutes of camera a day, free forever — enough for a menu, a sign, or a label. Pro is there when you want more.
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