Yomitan

Yomitan is a free pop-up dictionary for Chrome, Edge and Firefox. Hold Shift over a word on any page and it shows the dictionary entry. Connect it to Lymi and one press of + turns the word into a card, with its reading, its meaning, the sentence you read it in and the page it came from.

Lymi answers the AnkiConnect protocol, the one Yomitan uses to add notes to Anki, so Yomitan itself needs no change. Lymi is not made by or connected with Yomitan or Anki.

Set up in five steps

1. 1

   Install Yomitan and a dictionary

   Follow Yomitan’s installation guide to add it to your browser. Its welcome page offers recommended dictionaries for the language you read: JMdict for Japanese, or a Wiktionary dictionary for most other languages. Import one before you go on.

2. 2

   Copy the address and a key from Lymi

   In Lymi, open Settings from the menu under your name and choose Yomitan under Apps. In the phone app, open You → Apps → Yomitan. Copy the AnkiConnect server address:

   AnkiConnect server addressCopy

   https://my.lymi.app/api/anki-connect

   Then press Make a key for Yomitan and copy the key. Lymi shows it once.

3. 3

   Paste both into Yomitan

   Open Yomitan’s settings and turn on Advanced at the bottom of the menu. Under Anki, turn on Enable Anki integration, paste the address into AnkiConnect server address and the key into API key. The connection status changes to Connected.

4. 4

   Choose a deck and the note type

   Open Configure Anki card format. Choose one of your Lymi decks as the deck and Lymi card as the note type. Yomitan fills every field for you; leave them as they are.

5. 5

   Add a word

   On any page, hold Shift over a word and press + in the pop-up. The card is in your deck at once, and Activity lists it under the key’s name, Yomitan.

What each field becomes

Meaning

One line for each sense, numbered when there are several. Labels such as (n, vs), tables of other spellings, grammar and etymology notes and links to other words are left out. A meaning longer than a card holds is cut after its last whole line.

Reading

The reading becomes the pronunciation, such as さんぽ for 散歩 or addormentàrsi for addormentarsi. A reading that is the same as the term is left out.

Sentence and page

The sentence becomes the example and the page’s address becomes the source, so you can go back to where you read the word.

Audio

When Yomitan finds the word’s audio, it becomes the card’s recording. MP3, M4A, AAC and WAV up to 2 MB are kept.

Tags

The tags you set in Yomitan’s Anki settings are kept. Yomitan’s own tag, yomitan, is left out, because Activity already says where the card came from.

Empty fields

A field the dictionary left empty is filled the way your deck fills new cards, under Enrichment in the deck’s settings. Text Yomitan sent is yours and stays as it is.

One deck for each language

Yomitan sends every word to the deck in its card format. Lymi refuses a word written in another script than its deck’s language, such as an Italian word for a Japanese deck, and Yomitan shows why. Lymi cannot tell languages that share a script apart, so an Italian word sent to a Spanish deck is added there.

If you read in several languages, make one Yomitan profile for each under Profile in Yomitan’s settings, and choose that language’s deck in each.

Words you already have

When the pop-up opens, Yomitan asks Lymi whether each word is already a card, and marks it if it is. Pressing + on such a word adds nothing and keeps your card. A Japanese word with another reading, such as 上手 read うわて beside 上手 read じょうず, is a new card.

What stays behind

• Pictures. Screenshots, clipboard images and dictionary pictures are not kept. Add a picture to the card in Lymi.
• View note. Lymi has no window to open, so Yomitan’s View note button does nothing. Find the card in Library or Activity.
• Overwriting a note. Lymi does not change a card from Yomitan. Leave Yomitan’s duplicate setting on adding a new note, and edit the card in Lymi.
• Fields you add. Lymi reads the six fields above. Anything else you map in Yomitan is left out.

If something goes wrong

Lymi didn’t accept this key

The key was revoked or copied with a character missing. Make a new key in Lymi and paste it into Yomitan again.

This Lymi key can only read

The key has read access. Press Make a key for Yomitan in Lymi, which always makes a key that can add cards.

Lymi has no deck called …

The deck was renamed or archived after you chose it. Choose a deck again in Yomitan’s card format.

The word isn’t the deck’s language

Choose the deck for the language you are reading, or switch to its Yomitan profile.

Too many requests

A key makes up to 600 requests a minute. Wait a minute and try again.

• Decks and cardsHow a card is shaped, and what counts as a duplicate.
• LanguagesHow each language writes a pronunciation and an example.