Read Japanese aloud, no furigana needed
Lullula turns Japanese news, Wikipedia entries and articles into audio with a neural Japanese narrator, highlighting each sentence as it's spoken. Free browser extension, no account needed.
Free Β· No account needed Β· Chrome, Edge and Firefox
Nanami is one of Lullula's Japanese narrators. Press play and she introduces herself in Japanese. The other pills are the same engine in a few other languages, for comparison.
These are premium neural voices. The free plan includes 2,000 words a month of them, with no account needed, plus unlimited listening with the voices built into your browser.
How to have Japanese text read aloud
Three steps, and nothing to set up beyond installing the extension.
Install Lullula
Add the free extension from the Chrome Web Store (Chrome, Edge) or Firefox Add-ons. No account needed.
Open something in Japanese
A story on NHK News Web Easy, a Japanese Wikipedia entry, a light novel chapter, a blog post. Google Docs, text-based PDFs and DRM-free EPUBs work too.
Press play
Lullula recognises that the page is Japanese and reads it with a Japanese narrator, highlighting each sentence. Slow it down, skip back a sentence, or pick a different narrator.
Where Japanese text to speech helps
For learners, heritage speakers and anyone who reads Japanese more slowly than they'd like to.
NHK News Web Easy and the news
Simplified news is written to be read slowly. Hearing it in a natural neural voice while the sentence lights up is the obvious next step, and regular news sites work the same way.
Japanese Wikipedia
Long entries full of names, dates and technical terms. Play the AI summary first to decide whether the full entry is worth your time, then listen at your own pace.
Light novels and long articles
Web novels, essays and long articles rarely come with furigana. You don't need it: you hear the reading of every kanji as the sentence is highlighted, so you keep going instead of stopping to look things up.
Shadowing at half speed
Drop the speed toward 0.5x, repeat the sentence along with the narrator, then skip back one sentence and do it again. Push it up toward 2x when you just want to get through something.
What it can't do (yet)
Lullula reads text. A few things about Japanese text in particular are worth knowing before you install.
Romaji and mixed-language pages
Lullula picks one narrator per page from the page's language. Real kana and kanji sound right; romaji is Latin-alphabet text and won't be read as Japanese. A page that mixes Japanese and English is read by a single narrator throughout.
Scanned PDFs
A PDF that is only a picture of a page β a scanned book, a photographed handout β has no text layer, so there is nothing to read. Text-based PDFs work; image-only scans don't.
DRM-protected books
E-books bought with copy protection, which includes most Kindle and store purchases, can't be opened. DRM-free EPUBs read fine, with the same highlighting and speed control as a web page.
Questions, answered
Do I need furigana on the page?
No. You hear the reading of each word as the sentence is highlighted, which is the job furigana does on paper. Pages without any furigana, which is most articles and novels, are exactly where this helps.
Does it read kanji correctly?
The Japanese narrators read kanji and kana as Japanese text, choosing readings from context as any Japanese text-to-speech engine does. Ordinary text reads naturally; a rare personal or place name can occasionally get an unexpected reading.
Can I slow it down for shadowing practice?
Yes. Speed runs from 0.5x to 2x. Skip back a sentence to hear it again, and Lullula remembers where you stopped, so you can come back to a long text later and carry on.
Which Japanese narrator will I get?
Lullula chooses a Japanese narrator automatically when it sees a Japanese page. Several are available; Nanami is the one in the sample above. Pick the one you like and it becomes your voice for Japanese pages, separate from the narrator you use for English.
Is it free?
Yes. Listening with your browser's built-in voices is free and unlimited, and the free plan adds 2,000 words a month of premium neural voices like Nanami, with no account needed. If you want more premium listening, Pro is $4.99 a month, or $4.17 a month billed yearly ($49.99 a year).
Does it work on my phone?
Not yet. Lullula is an extension for desktop Chrome, Edge and Firefox; there is no phone app.
Start listening in Japanese
Install Lullula, open a Japanese page, press play. Free, no account needed.
Other languages: Spanish, French, German and Chinese β or see text to speech in 80+ languages. Lullula also reads Google Docs, PDFs and EPUBs aloud.
Add to Chrome β It's Free