Chinese Pinyin Translator and Pronunciation Dictionary
First time here?
Thank you for your interest!
Here's how it works.
This phonetic translator has several settings, such as Convert to.
Each time you change the settings, the phonetic transcription of the sample texts below is automatically updated.
The only exceptions are premium features (Read the text aloud and Translate the text into your native language). We already created computer-generated audio for each sample text for you.
Transcription above each word
Transcription under each line of text
Transcription under each paragraph of text
Phonetic symbols cheat sheet
How to use this Chinese pinyin translator
Introduction
This online pinyin translator can convert Chinese text into several different formats. All of them follow the pronunciation rules of standard Mandarin Chinese:
- Pinyin with tone marks (pīnyīn) – the most common way to transcribe Chinese characters
- Pinyin with tone numbers (pin¹yin¹)
- Pinyin without tone marks (pinyin) – this method can be used for memorizing the tones
- Hanzi with tone marks (拼音) – this method will help you memorize the pronunciation of individual sounds
- Colored hanzi (拼音) – a variation on the fourth method
- International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) (pʰin¹jin¹) – the most accurate method of showing the pronunciation of Chinese words
This pinyin converter understands both simplified and traditional characters.
A special option corrects tones for 一, 不. As you may know, the pronunciation of these two characters changes depending on the surrounding words.
If you need to copy the phonetic transcription into another program or print it, please read our FAQ.
Watch a tutorial "How to convert text to phonetic transcription and listen to audio recordings of words"
Number of audio recordings in our Chinese pronunciation dictionary
We hired professional voice-over artists to record the correct pronunciation of the most popular Chinese words. The number of the audio recordings is indicated in the following table. Click the buttons to listen to the sample words.
| Qili | 14,000 words |
Qili
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| Hongmei | 14,000 words |
|
Hongmei
|
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Multiple pronunciations of Chinese words
Some Chinese words are spelled the same, but are pronounced differently and have different meanings. They are called homographs. Compare:
| 地方方言 [dìfāng] | ↔ | 这个地方真美 [dìfang] |
The phonetic translator will highlight homographs in green. If you hover your cursor over these words or tap them on your mobile device, you will see all possible pronunciations.
At the moment this phonetic translator cannot yet decide which pronunciation is correct for such words. You will need to choose the correct pronunciation yourself depending on the context.
Premium features: high-quality computer-generated audio and automatic translation
The subscription Premium gives you access to some additional features in this phonetic translator:
- You will be able to generate the audio of your text using a selection of high-quality text-to-speech voices.
- You will be able to obtain an automatic translation of your text into your native language.
Please read our FAQ to learn more about premium features.
Built-in Chinese dictionary
This pinyin translator has several built-in dictionaries. They are listed in the following table:
| Chinese ➔ English | CC-CEDICT |
| Chinese ➔ French | CFDICT |
| Chinese ➔ German | HanDeDict |
| Chinese ➔ Russian | 大БКРС |
Before you can activate them, make sure this page is displayed in the right language. For example, for Chinese-English dictionary set the page language to "English" in the top left corner.
Here's what you need to do to activate the dictionary:
- For the setting Transcription display options select the option "transcription above each word".
- In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option "word's meaning".
- After submitting your text, click on any word in the results to see its definition.
Create your own custom word lists
You can create your own custom word lists using this phonetic translator. Here's how you can do it:
- For the setting Transcription display options select the option "transcription above each word".
- In the section Choose what you will see when you click the word turn on the option " to word list".
- After submitting your text, click on the word you want to add to the word list and then click the button " to word list".
- You will be prompted to select the transcription and enter the meaning/translation of the word (the latter for most languages is optional).
- Once you finished adding words to your word list, click on My Account at the top of the page and then on My word lists. You will see the list of all your word lists.
There are so many things you can do with your word list:
- export it into a file (Word, Excel, plain text),
- print it from your browser,
- share it with other people (for example, your students),
- practice pronunciation of every word using the audio recordings of real people (if available) or high-quality text-to-speech voices.
Watch a tutorial "How to create custom word lists"
Chinese characters worksheet generator
This tool also allows you to create your own worksheet to practice writing Chinese characters. In order to do that, you will need to submit some Chinese text. Then you may choose your worksheet settings:
- How many times each character will be displayed
- Regular (kaishu) or running (xingshu) script
- Font size
- Grid style
Highlighting of high-frequency Chinese words
In the section Advanced options you will find a special option that allows you to highlight high-frequency Chinese words. The words from different frequency intervals will be highlighted in the following colors:
| 1–1000 | 1001–2000 | 2001–3000 | 3001–4000 | 4001–5000 |
If you want to make the frequency analysis of your text and obtain the detailed statistics, please use Chinese word frequency counter.
You can choose:
- Vocabulary lists for Chinese Proficiency Test HSK
- Subtlex – subtitle-based word frequency list
- Google Pinyin word frequency list
The Chinese words required for the HSK exam will be highlighted as follows:
| HSK 1 | HSK 2 | HSK 3 | HSK 4 | HSK 5 | HSK 6 |
Learning Chinese as second language: phonetic transcription can help you improve your Chinese pronunciation
Chinese pronunciation can be confusing for people who are just starting to learn Chinese.
The official system to transcribe Chinese characters into Latin script is hanyu pinyin, but it can be very misleading sometimes. Take for the example the syllables "qiu" and "you". The final in both syllables is the same, but they are written in different ways!
If you want to progress quickly we highly recommend you use International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to help you learn how to pronounce Chinese words correctly.
This tool will serve you as an Chinese pronunciation guide and will help you save time. You will no longer need to look up the pronunciation of words in a dictionary.
If you use the phonetic transcription regularly in combination with Chinese audio and video recordings, your pronunciation and listening skills in the Chinese language will improve.
Do you learn or teach Chinese?
We know sometimes Chinese may seem complicated. We don't want you to waste your time.
Check all our tools and learn Chinese faster!
Check our Chinese pinyin subtitle converter and obtain something like this:
- Phonetics and pronunciation glossary
- Chinese Pinyin Subtitle Converter
- Chinese dictionaries online – Project Modelino
- Free Chinese-English dictionary CC-CEDICT
- Standard Mandarin Chinese – Wikipedia
- Hanyu pinyin – Wikipedia
- Chinese phonology – Wikipedia
- Simplified Chinese characters – Wikipedia
- Traditional Chinese characters – Wikipedia
- Chinese Proficiency Test HSK – Wikipedia
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