A Vocabo alternative that flips whole sentences
Vocabo and Phrase Flip share a refreshingly simple philosophy: install the extension, keep reading the web in English, and learn a language without creating an account or hitting a paywall. The difference comes down to whether you want single words swapped in Chrome or whole sentences flipped across Chrome and Safari.
The short version
| Phrase Flip | Vocabo | |
|---|---|---|
| What gets translated | Whole sentences | Single words |
| Where translation runs | On your device | Cloud translation |
| Price | Free | Free |
| Account required | No | No |
| Browsers | Chrome, Safari on Mac, iPhone and iPad | Chrome and Chromium browsers |
| Languages | 11 (Arabic is experimental) | 240+ |
Sentences vs single words
Vocabo replaces individual words on the pages you visit while leaving the rest of each sentence in English, and includes audio pronunciation and a saved-word bank. That makes it easy to pick up standalone nouns and adjectives at a glance.
Phrase Flip flips entire sentences into the language you're learning. Once you know basic vocabulary, single words stop stretching you—you need to see how sentences actually hang together in the wild. With Phrase Flip, the surrounding English sentences tell you what the paragraph is about, so you can work out the flipped sentence from context and hover (or tap on mobile) to check the original English whenever you want. An intensity slider lets you control how many sentences flip per page.
On-device privacy
Neither extension asks you to sign up for an account. Phrase Flip goes a step further by translating page text on your device rather than sending text from the pages you read to a remote translation server.
Browsers and mobile reading
Vocabo runs in desktop Chromium browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Brave and Arc.
Phrase Flip works in Chrome (138 or newer) and as a native Safari extension on Mac, iPhone and iPad. If a lot of your everyday reading happens on an iPhone or iPad, Phrase Flip works right inside mobile Safari.
Which one should you pick?
Pick Vocabo if you want single-word replacements, audio pronunciation and a word bank, or if you're learning one of the 240+ languages outside Phrase Flip's supported list.
Pick Phrase Flip if you want to practice reading full sentences in context, keep page text on your device, or learn in Safari on a Mac, iPhone or iPad.
You can try the interactive demo on the Phrase Flip homepage, get Phrase Flip on the App Store for Safari (Mac, iPhone and iPad), or add Phrase Flip to Chrome.