🌏 Chinese Reader 📖

A lightweight, browser-based tool for reading and studying Chinese text. It shows pinyin and meanings on click or touch (not inline), plus character-level breakdowns — perfect for curious learners! ✨

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🌟 Features

• 🖱️ Click or 📱 tap a word/character to reveal pinyin, gloss, and character breakdown
• ⚡ Works fully client‑side (no server)
• 🎯 Minimal UI focused on reading flow
• 💻📱 Mobile and desktop friendly

🚀 Quick Start

1. Download or clone this repo.

2. Open index.html in a modern browser or serve locally:

   # any simple static server works; here are a few options
   python3 -m http.server 8000
   # then visit http://localhost:8000

3. Paste or open Chinese text and start clicking/tapping to see pinyin & definitions.

Project preference: single-file JS. The app is designed so index.html bootstraps and all logic lives in script.js (no separate CSS/HTML required beyond the bare shell).

🔍 How It Works

• The reader tokenizes text into words/characters.

• On click/touch, it looks up the selection, then displays:

  • 🈶 Pinyin for the selected token
  • 📜 Definition (dictionary-backed)
  • 🔡 Character breakdown: component characters with brief meanings

• 🔊 Optional text-to-speech hook can read the selected token aloud.

⌨️ Keyboard & Touch

• Click / Tap: show pinyin + definition overlay for the token
• Esc / Tap outside: dismiss overlay
• Arrow keys (optional): move selection to previous/next token

📂 File Layout

/ (repo root)
├─ index.html        # tiny bootstrap that loads script.js
├─ script.js         # the entire app (UI + logic)
├─ data/             # optional dictionaries, frequency lists, etc.
├─ assets/           # optional icons / audio
└─ README.md         # this file

⚙️ Configuration

• Dictionaries: point script.js to your preferred dictionary JSON (e.g., CC-CEDICT format) under data/.
• Display mode: choose per‑click overlays (default) vs. side panel details.
• Fonts: the app chooses a legible CJK font stack; override in script.js if desired.

🛣 Roadmap

• 🔁 Sentence‑by‑sentence playback
• ✏️ Per‑character stroke order hints
• 📄 Export annotated text (with footnoted pinyin) to Markdown/PDF
• 🎨 Frequency-based highlighting

🤝 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For larger changes, please open an issue first to discuss direction.

1. Fork → create a feature branch → commit → PR
2. Prefer small, focused changes with clear commit messages

📜 License

MIT — © Steve Moraff. Do anything you want, just keep the license and attribution.