A Yomitan alternative for any language
Yomitan is excellent – for Japanese. If you read in Spanish, German, Arabic, or several languages at once, Wordwise gives you the same popup-lookup workflow with no dictionary packs to install, and exports finished Anki cards in one click.
22 languages, auto-detected. Works with Anki, AnkiConnect, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Brave.
Yomitan is the best free dictionary for Japanese
Yomitan (the successor to Yomichan) is the standard popup dictionary for Japanese learners, and it earned that. It's free and open source. Hover lookup is instant and works offline. Its Japanese deconjugation is excellent, it supports pitch-accent and frequency dictionaries, and its Anki integration is deeply configurable. If you study Japanese seriously and like owning your setup, keep it.
People rarely go looking for a Yomitan alternative because of Japanese. They go looking because of every other language they read.
Outside Japanese, you become the dictionary maintainer
Outside Japanese, Yomitan depends on community-made dictionary files. For some languages they are good. For many they are partial, outdated, or missing. You find them, import them, and maintain them yourself.
It also doesn't detect what language you're reading. Switch from a Spanish article to a German one and you switch dictionary profiles by hand. Read four languages and you maintain four setups.
And a dictionary entry is not a flashcard. Yomitan shows you every sense of the word; you still pick the meaning that fits your sentence and shape the card in your note template.
Wordwise flips those three things: 22 languages work out of the box, the language is auto-detected, and the lookup itself is already a finished, editable Anki card. The definition is chosen from the sentence you're reading – a context-aware Anki dictionary rather than a dictionary viewer.
Take the card above: in Der Zug fällt heute aus, the verb is the separable ausfallen – "fällt … aus" wraps around the sentence. A word-by-word lookup of "fällt" gives you fallen, "to fall", which is wrong here. Reading the whole sentence is what gets you "cancelled".
Wordwise vs Yomitan at a glance
Both are browser popup dictionaries with Anki export. They make opposite trade-offs: Yomitan gives you control, Wordwise gives you finished cards.
| Wordwise | Yomitan | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Multi-language readers who want finished Anki cards | Japanese learners and dictionary power users |
| Languages | 22 out of the box, auto-detected | Japanese first-class; others via community dictionaries, switched manually |
| Setup | Install extension, sign up | Install extension + find, import, and configure dictionaries and note templates |
| Definitions | One definition chosen from your sentence's context | Full dictionary entries; you pick the sense |
| Anki cards | Finished card: definition, translation, pronunciation, sentence, reverse card, auto-sync | Dictionary entry mapped through your own note template |
| Works offline | No – definitions are generated | Yes – local dictionaries |
| Price | Free for English; $5.99/month or $39/year, 7-day trial | Free, open source |
If Japanese is your only language, stay with Yomitan. If you read in more than one, or you want the lookup-to-card step to disappear, try Wordwise – here is what the reading workflow looks like.
Yomitan alternative FAQ
Is Yomitan free?
Yes. Yomitan is free and open source, and that's a real advantage. If it covers your language well and you enjoy configuring dictionaries and card templates, there's no reason to pay for anything. Wordwise charges $5.99/month (or $39/year) because it does the work Yomitan leaves to you: choosing the right definition for the sentence, formatting the card, and handling 20+ languages without setup.
Does Yomitan work for languages other than Japanese?
Partly. Yomitan can import community-made dictionary files for other languages, but coverage and quality vary a lot by language, you install and manage each dictionary yourself, and you switch profiles manually when you change languages. For Japanese it's superb. The further you get from Japanese, the more the setup burden grows – which is usually why people search for an alternative.
Does Wordwise support Japanese?
Yes – Japanese is one of the 22 supported languages, with context-aware definitions and one-click Anki export. But if Japanese is your only language, Yomitan's specialized features (deep deconjugation, pitch-accent and frequency dictionaries) are hard to beat, and we'd point you there. Wordwise wins when you read across multiple languages or want cards generated without any dictionary setup.
Can I use Wordwise and Yomitan together?
Yes, and some learners do: Yomitan for deep Japanese reading, Wordwise for everything else. They are both browser extensions and don't conflict – pick whichever lookup fits the page you're reading.
Do I need to install dictionaries for Wordwise?
No. There are no dictionary packs, term banks, or templates to install. Wordwise generates the definition from the sentence you're reading, in the language you choose, for 22 languages out of the box. Install the extension, sign up, and look up your first word.
How does Anki export compare?
Both tools export to Anki via AnkiConnect. The difference is what lands in the deck. Yomitan exports the dictionary entry you picked, formatted by the note template you configured. Wordwise exports a finished card – the definition matched to your sentence, translation, pronunciation, part of speech, the original sentence, plus a reverse card – with one-click export and auto-sync, no template work.
Every language,
zero dictionary packs
Look up a word in any of 22 languages and export the finished Anki card.