Hachidori pink and lilac hummingbird logo

Hachidori

The fastest, most feature rich Japanese dictionary app in the world

Install · Benchmarks · Architecture · Extension · Sharing · Chrome Web Store guide · Privacy · Contributing

Hachidori is a blazing fast Japanese Dictionary Chrome Extension that is feature rich and optionated. ## Install in 15 seconds Click here to install from Chrome store. (note: this will always lag behind the repo and may have bugs fixed in the repo) Every GitHub release also ships an unsigned Firefox 153+ desktop package (`*-firefox-unsigned.xpi`) for temporary installation; it is not on addons.mozilla.org yet. See [the Firefox guide](docs/firefox.md); media recording is not included in that edition.

Animated walkthrough of Hachidori's first-run setup, dictionary installation, Anki detection, and Japanese lookup

# Blazing Fast Hachidori is 83 times faster than the worlds most popular Japanese dictionary app at importing dictionaries. ChatGPT Image Sep 9, 2026, 09_18_59 AM

See [the measured results](docs/browser-performance.md). # Media mining Screenshot 2026-09-09 at 11 26 31

Hachidori can record your screen and capture sentence audio + a gif. Not just in Chrome but in all windows on your desktop. This feature is **experimental** and may not work very well. I may remove it or reduce it also. See [Media mining setup, limits, and verification](docs/media-capture.md). # Custom Dictionary Do you keep on seeing a name pop up over & over again in a book, but it's not in the dictionary? With Hachidori, you can highlight the word and add it as a custom definition.

Animated demonstration of adding and viewing a custom dictionary definition in Hachidori

# Lookup blur Sometimes we fall into a trap of looking up a word over & over again, but never learning it. Hachidori records how many times you have looked up a word and can blur it for you for a few seconds to force you to remember it. It can even use anki.

Animated demonstration of Hachidori blurring repeated lookups before revealing their definitions

# Sharing Set up Hachidori once and use that setup from every other Hachidori, in GameSentenceMiner, another browser or another computer. Same dictionaries and settings used across multiple Hachidoris. Install [Hachidori Relay for Anki](https://github.com/bee-san/hachidori-anki) from **Settings → Sharing → Download the Anki add-on**, then follow the [sharing guide](docs/sharing.md) to link your other browsers. Screenshot 2026-09-14 at 14 19 41

# Experimental features **Settings → Advanced → Experimental features** switches on work that is still changing and may be removed: - **Media mining** — the screen and audio capture above. - **Long dictionary entries** — find entries longer than the scan length (proverbs, titles) without scanning further on every hover. - **MDX dictionaries** — import MDict `.mdx` dictionaries with their `.mdd` resource files from **Add dictionaries**, next to Yomitan ZIPs. Choose the `.mdx` and its `.mdd` files together. # Opinionated Hachidori is an opinionated program. If it does not benefit me, the creator, personally than I will not add that feature. I do this because I am a pretty average learner, and if I make this tool great for myself than I am making it great for the average Japanese learner. # AI Usage This program was created with the assistance of AI. I used GPT 5.6 Ultra, and then GPT 6.0 Astra Ultra exclusively. When Codex goes down, I use Fable 5.1 with ultrathink and ultracode. I have reviewed all plans, I set the direction of how this program works. Large parts of the program such as the actual dictionary core are hand-written. I also have personally been using this for months, and as I am the main user of this program I find bugs pretty often which I fix. The assets used are AI generated. If you are an artist and want to contribute to open source, please feel free to make a real logo or a visual novel style background. ## Credits The logo pack and six visual novel backgrounds were supplied by bee-san. See the [asset ownership and publishing record](docs/asset-rights.md) for the original assets and their copyright declaration. Hachidori is powered by [hoshidicts](https://github.com/Manhhao/hoshidicts) by Manhhao. Its popup renderer, structured-content renderer, furigana segmentation, and CSS are ported from [GameSentenceMiner PR #549](https://github.com/bpwhelan/GameSentenceMiner/pull/549), which adapts [Hoshi Reader](https://github.com/Manhhao/Hoshi-Reader) and [Yomitan](https://github.com/yomidevs/yomitan). See the full [renderer attribution](extension/render/ATTRIBUTION.md). ## License Hachidori is available under [GPL-3.0-or-later](LICENSE), matching hoshidicts and the ported GameSentenceMiner code.