How do I translate selected text with a keyboard shortcut in Chrome?

Select the text on any webpage, then press Ctrl+E. Sonic Translate opens a small popup next to your selection with the translation, speaker buttons to listen to both texts, a copy button, and a dictionary preview. Press Shift+E instead when you want the full side panel.

How do I use the Ctrl+E shortcut?

Chrome has no built-in shortcut for translating a selection — users have asked for one. Sonic Translate adds it:

1. Install Sonic Translate from the Chrome Web Store.
2. Select the text you want to translate.
3. Press Ctrl+E. The popup appears next to the selection and translates automatically.

Inside the popup you can:

• Listen — speaker buttons play the original and the translation using your browser's voices.
• Copy the translation with one click.
• Check the dictionary preview — the first two parts of speech, up to four terms each; the expand button opens the full entry in the side panel.
• Drag the popup anywhere on the page.

Press Escape or click outside to close it. The default is Ctrl+E on every OS, including Mac — and you can record a different combo, including one with ⌘, in Options.

What does Shift+E do?

Shift+E opens the full panel: a 420-pixel panel on the right with searchable language dropdowns, a swap button that re-translates in the other direction, and tabs for the translation, definitions grouped by part of speech, synonyms, and your local history. Every word in the definitions is clickable to translate it in turn. You can also open the panel from the right-click menu ("Translate with Sonic") or with the popup's expand button.

Where do the shortcuts not work?

Chrome blocks all extensions on chrome:// pages, the Chrome Web Store, the built-in PDF viewer, and the new-tab page, so Ctrl+E does nothing there. To translate a whole page rather than a selection, use Chrome's built-in page translation — Sonic Translate translates only the text you select.

What if Ctrl+E clashes with another shortcut?

Open Options via the gear icon in the toolbar popup and change the keyboard shortcut to any two-key combo. If pressing it has no effect at all, see why the shortcut may not be working.

Translation covers 109 languages, powered by Google Translate. More on the translate-selected-text feature page.