Chinese to Pinyin Converter
Convert Chinese to pinyin with correct tone marks. Paste your text and you'll get word-aware pinyin with tone colors, tone numbers, and tap-for-meaning on every word. It's free, and there's no signup.
A pinyin converter that understands words, not just characters
Most converters look at one character at a time, and that's where they fall apart: hundreds of common characters have more than one reading. 长 is zhǎng in 长大 (to grow up) but cháng in 很长 (very long). 得 can be dé, de, or děi depending on the word it's in. This tool runs your text through a real word-segmentation engine first, the same one behind Chenjin's graded reader, so each word carries its correct dictionary reading.
You also get three output styles: pinyin above the characters (like a textbook), line-by-line with the Chinese sentence on top, or clean pinyin-only text you can copy anywhere. Switch between tone marks (nǐ hǎo) and tone numbers (ni3 hao3) with one click, and tap any word to see what it means.
When pinyin helps, and when to let it go
Pinyin is a bridge, and it's a great one: it lets you pronounce text that's above your character level, check a reading you're unsure about, or prepare a passage before reading it aloud. Use the converter for song lyrics, homework passages, names, or anything you want to read out loud with confidence.
Long term, though, the goal is reading characters without the training wheels. That's exactly what Chenjin's reader is built for: pinyin appears only when you hover or tap a word, so you're always testing yourself first and checking second. When you're ready to move from converting text to actually reading it, that's the next step.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is the conversion?
More accurate than character-by-character converters. The tool first splits your text into words using the same segmentation engine that powers Chenjin's reader, then assigns each word its dictionary reading. That means polyphonic characters (多音字) like 长, 得, 了, and 行 get the right pinyin from their word context, so 长大 comes out zhǎng dà while 很长 comes out hěn cháng.
What's the difference between tone marks and tone numbers?
Tone marks put the tone directly over the vowel (nǐ hǎo), which is how pinyin appears in textbooks. Tone numbers put a digit after each syllable (ni3 hao3), which is easier to type and common in flashcard apps. This converter outputs both, so use the toggle to switch.
Is this a pinyinizer?
Yes, that's another name for the same thing. Whether you call it a pinyinizer, a pinyin generator, or a hanzi-to-pinyin converter, it does the same job: you paste Chinese characters and it annotates them with romanized pronunciation.
Does it work with traditional characters?
Yes. The dictionary behind the converter covers both simplified and traditional forms, so you can paste text from Taiwan or Hong Kong sources as well as mainland ones.
What do the colors mean?
Each pinyin syllable is colored by its tone: first, second, third, fourth, or neutral. Tone coloring is a popular memory aid because it makes the tone visible at a glance while you read. You can turn it off if you prefer plain text.
Is there a limit?
You can convert up to 2,000 characters at a time, and there's a generous daily limit to keep the tool fast for everyone. It's free and doesn't require an account.
Ready to read without pinyin?
A free Chenjin membership gets you the full graded reader: stories at your level, tap-anything dictionary with stroke order and word families, spaced-repetition flashcards, and audio for every article.
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