China First Timer

Read a sign, ticket or receipt

Take a photo of Chinese text: a sign, a notice at a sight, a train ticket, a receipt or a screen. You get the text line by line in English, and what it means for you.

Warning: machine reading can miss or misread text. For anything that matters (a fine, a medicine label, a train time), confirm with staff or the official channel.

The most common signs, offline: common signs. Menus have their own reader with spice and allergen flags: menu reader. Photos are sent to our AI provider to read them and are not stored; see Privacy.

Something wrong or out of date on this page? Tell us

Don't include personal details. A link to the official source helps us check quickly.