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Shiritai is a Chrome extension that turns any web page into a Japanese reading lesson. Toggle furigana on and readings appear above every kanji—on X, Threads, blogs, news, anywhere. The reading engine runs locally, so it's fast and private. Select any text → Explain for a study card: translation, grammar, vocab, kanji, JLPT level, and the casual nuance dictionaries miss. Built for N5–N2 learners reading real Japanese. A companion web app explains any pasted text the same way.
Shiritai | 知りたい is a Chrome extension that turns any web page into a Japanese reading lesson — from X posts and Threads replies to blogs, news, and YouTube comments.
If you've ever frozen on a kanji you couldn't read, or stared at a casual sentence that looked nothing like your textbook drills, Shiritai is for you.
🎯 What it does
1. Furigana on any page
Hit Annotate this page and Shiritai adds readings (furigana) above every kanji — instantly, on any site. Adjust the text size with a slider so it's comfortable to read. The reading engine runs locally inside the extension, so it's fast and private — no round-trip to a server for every word.
2. Select any text → get a study card
Highlight a word, phrase, or sentence, right-click → Explain, and Shiritai opens a study card with:
- 🌏 Natural + literal translation
- 🇯🇵 A standard-Japanese rewrite (so you see the "textbook" version of casual speech)
- 📐 Grammar breakdown — meaning, formation, formality, and JLPT level
- 📖 Vocabulary — word, reading, meaning, part of speech
- 漢 Kanji — the reading in this word and its basic meaning
- 💬 Casual / social-media nuance (the stuff dictionaries skip)
- 📝 A short study summary
👤 Who it's for
Japanese learners reading real content — roughly N5 to N2. People who are past the textbooks and want to survive native text without losing momentum every three words.
🧩 How it fits together
Shiritai is two things:
- A Chrome extension (this) for furigana + select-to-explain while you browse.
- A web app where you can paste any Japanese text and get the same study cards.
The furigana reader does the reading; the study cards do the learning.
💸 Pricing
Free!
🔗 Links
- Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.co...
- Website: https://shiritai.app/
I'm building Shiritai in public and would love your feedback — especially if you study Japanese or build language tools. What would make this part of your daily reading habit?
どうぞよろしくお願いします！ 🙇♀️
This is exactly what I've been looking for, especially the local processing. One thing that would make it even better for me is letting users save the study cards directly into an Anki deck or export them as a CSV so I can actually review what I've learned. Right now the explain feature is amazing but the cards kind of disappear after I close the tab.
About Shiritai — Furigana Reader for Japanese on Product Hunt
“Turn any webpage into a Japanese reading lesson ”
Shiritai — Furigana Reader for Japanese was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 5 upvotes and 2 comments, placing #105 on the daily leaderboard. Shiritai is a Chrome extension that turns any web page into a Japanese reading lesson. Toggle furigana on and readings appear above every kanji—on X, Threads, blogs, news, anywhere. The reading engine runs locally, so it's fast and private. Select any text → Explain for a study card: translation, grammar, vocab, kanji, JLPT level, and the casual nuance dictionaries miss. Built for N5–N2 learners reading real Japanese. A companion web app explains any pasted text the same way.
Shiritai — Furigana Reader for Japanese was featured in Chrome Extensions (52.7k followers), Productivity (658.2k followers), Social Media (89.2k followers) and Languages (14.4k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 195.9k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Shiritai — Furigana Reader for Japanese?
Shiritai — Furigana Reader for Japanese was hunted by Alina Zhusupbekova. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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Alina Zhusupbekova