Paste Chinese characters and convert them to pinyin. Tone marks show the spoken tone, as in nǐ hǎo. Tone numbers put that tone after the syllable, as in ni3 hao3. Menus, place names, and textbook lines are the usual inputs.
How the readings are chosen
Each character uses its most common Mandarin reading. 行 in 银行 is háng, while 行 in 行走 is xíng. A character-by-character converter cannot see that difference, so it keeps the reading listed first in the dictionary. Letters, numbers, and punctuation pass through unchanged. Syllables are separated with a space.
Tone marks sit on a vowel. First tone is a macron (ā), second tone rises (á), third tone dips (ǎ), and fourth tone falls (à). Tone numbers are the same four tones written as 1, 2, 3, and 4. A syllable with no mark is the neutral tone, the short unstressed sound in 的 (de).
What to paste
- A dish on a menu, so you can ask for it out loud.
- A street or station name from a sign.
- A given name from the Chinese name generator, if you want the tones written as numbers for a textbook.
Readings come from pinyin-data by mozillazg, used under the MIT License. The conversion runs in your browser.
Questions people ask
How do I convert Chinese characters to pinyin?
Paste the characters into the box. 你好 becomes nǐ hǎo with tone marks, and ni3 hao3 with tone numbers. Letters, spaces, and punctuation stay as they are.
What do the tone marks mean?
Mandarin has four tones plus a neutral tone. The marks ā, á, ǎ, and à show tones 1 through 4. Tone numbers put the same tone after the syllable: ma1, ma2, ma3, ma4. A syllable with no mark is read in the neutral tone.
Why does one character sometimes have another reading?
Some characters change sound with the word around them. This converter uses the most common reading for each character. For a name or a place, check the word with a Chinese speaker if the line looks unfamiliar.