NoaLingua Feature
AI explanations, on the device, in five tabs
Explain, Grammar, Idiom, Simplify and Examples — with an honest answer when the model is absent
A panel with five tabs — Explain, Grammar, Idiom, Simplify, Examples — answering a different question about the sentence you are on. It runs on Chrome's own on-device model, so there is no API key and no account, and it is disabled with the reason stated where a device has no model.
Fit
Who AI explanations is for
Choose it for the workflow it actually supports, not for a promise the product does not make.
Best for
- Learners on a device where Chrome ships its on-device model, who want a sentence unpicked in place.
- People who treat a generated explanation as a hint to check rather than as an authority.
Not the right fit for
- Devices without Chrome's on-device model, which is a large share of them and is stated up front.
- Anyone wanting an open chat: this is five fixed questions about the sentence in front of you.
How to use it
How to use AI explanations in NoaLingua
- 1
Open it from the sentence or from a word
Quick menu → Explain current sentence, or the Explain button at the bottom of any word card. From a word card it opens for that word in that sentence, which is a narrower and usually better question.
- 2
Pick the tab that matches what you are stuck on
Explain: what this sentence means and why it is built this way. Grammar: the construction in it. Idiom: whether something here does not translate literally. Simplify: the same thing said more plainly. Examples: other sentences with the same word or construction.
- 3
Check whether your browser has the model first
The quick menu says so before you press anything, and disables the button with the reason underneath when there is no model — rather than letting you wait and then handing you an error.
- 4
If there is no model, copy the prompt instead
With "Offer external help when a source fails" turned on, the panel offers a button that copies a ready-made prompt for any AI chat. Nothing is sent anywhere on its own; it is copied to your clipboard when you click.
Mechanism
Why NoaLingua behaves this way
Why NoaLingua does not offer to download the model
The model belongs to Chrome. An extension cannot install it, and a download button that cannot download anything is a lie told at exactly the moment somebody was trusting the interface. So the Downloads section states whether the model is present and offers no button.
This is also why the panel checks before rather than after. On a large number of devices Chrome's Prompt API either does not exist or never answers, and that has to be visible up front rather than discovered through a hang.
What the model is given, and what it is not trusted with
The panel receives up to five previous sentences of the video as context, taken from the same history the transcript panel already holds — because a pronoun in isolation cannot be explained and a model asked to try will invent an antecedent.
Everything the model writes is treated as untrusted text: rendered as plain text through safe components, never as HTML. The same rule applies to subtitle text and to page content. A model that can be steered by the page it is reading must never be able to reach the page it is writing to.
Why nothing else depends on it
The dictionary, the conjugation tables, the example sentences and every practice format work without the model, because they come from downloaded data rather than from generation. That is a deliberate structural choice: the parts of the product that must be right do not run on a model that might not be there.
It also means the answer to "the AI does not work on my machine" is a small one. You lose five explanations. You do not lose lookups, grammar, examples, review or practice.
Common questions about NoaLingua
Do I need an API key or a subscription?
Neither. It uses the model built into Chrome, so there is nothing to sign up for and nothing to pay. It is also why it cannot be made to work on a device Chrome has not equipped.
Does my sentence get sent to a server?
No. The model runs on your device. The only route that involves anywhere else is the copy-a-prompt button, which puts text on your clipboard for you to paste somewhere yourself.
Can I make the video pause when the panel opens?
Yes — "Pause the video when the explanation panel opens" in Settings → General. It is off by default.
Can I turn the whole thing off?
Yes. One switch in Settings → General disables the panel entirely, and there is an internal flag that can disable it for everybody if the underlying API misbehaves.
More NoaLingua features to read next
AI explanations is on the free plan. So is everything else.
Free, with every feature. No account, nothing to cancel, and your deck stays on your machine.
Add to Chrome — Free Add to Chrome Opens the Chrome Web Store listing NoaLingua — beyond dual subs: video, web, PDF — free, no account, Chrome 138 or newer.- Free, and not a trial Every feature on the free plan — both PDF modes, shadowing, all 30 practice formats.
- No account, no email Nothing to sign up for and nothing to cancel. There is no login screen at all.
- Two dropdowns to set up Pick what you are learning and what you want translations in. That is the whole setup.
- Your words stay yours Export to Anki, CSV, a spreadsheet or a full JSON profile — free on every plan.