Top Firefox extensions to help you read Chinese online

Reading Chinese for those not Chinese born is a difficult task. I've seen some good Chinese students stay away from reading Chinese material because they figured it's an impossible task.

So, here's my small guide on how a Chinese beginner, such as myself, can read through Chinese based websites using simple extensions provided for the Firefox browser.

In my humble opinion, and I know some would disagree, Mozilla Firefox is the ultimate browser. It's not because Internet Explorer has security bugs, and not because Opera isn't a great piece of software, but rather because there's a big community of coders built around Firefox to provide it with endless extensions to give extra functionality. Mozilla Firefox is a great browser as an out-of-the-box, but it's the extensions that make this browser perfect. I've found an extension for all my online needs – blogging, web development, social tagging, website tweaking, comment tracking, and most important – Chinese web browsing.

Following is a short list of extensions that I've used which would help you get through reading Chinese websites easily. All the extensions are free to use unless mentioned otherwise :

Website and section translation extensions

• FoxLingo provides full webpage translation using all possible translation sites (Google, Altavista, etc.) through an easy to use toolbar.
• gTranslate will translate sections you highlight and right click using Google Translate service for simplified-Chinese.
• Translate will forward the page you're on to Altavista's Babelfish and translate it to/from both traditional and simplified Chinese.
• East Asian Translator will translate webpages and selected passages from Chinese using Excite
• ImTranslator has a small box interface to translate to/from Chinese. There's a  nice useful feature of double-translation, translating to Chinese and then back again to give you a feel of what was changed or lost during the translation.

Hovering extensions

• DictDN will give a translation for a Chinese word you hover over with audio support.
• ChinesePera-kun is an excellent tool that "will popup the pinyin reading and English definition when you mouse over Chinese in Simplified or Traditional characters."
• Hanzibar will add a dedicated tools bar and translate the characters you point at. Full version available for purchase with some extra features.
• Adso is another popular tool based on Adsotrans, but a bit more complicated to install since it runs on Greasemonkey. Instructions available on Chinese-forums.com .

Other

If you've studied only Traditional Chinese and are reading a Simplified Chinese website or vise-versa, check out Tong Wen Tang (translated).

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My combo recommentdation : FoxLingo (website), gTranslate (phrases), ChinesePera-kun (hoovering) and Tong Wen Tang (to Traditional-Chinese). What's your combo?

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Are you using any other Firefox extensions for reading Chinese? Know of any other language tools for Firefox? Please comment here or write me and let me know