Add Pinyin to Chinese Text
A free pinyin annotator for printed reading sheets. Paste a text, choose which characters get pinyin, and print it with the pinyin sitting above each character.
Click a character to remove its pinyin, and click again to bring it back. Click between characters to type. Hover over a character (or press and hold on a phone) for more options.
A dotted line under a pinyin means the character has more than one reading. Red pinyin is a reading you chose. None of these marks print.
How to add pinyin to a Chinese text
- Paste your text. One long text is fine, and so are several short ones. Each gets its own title and starts its own section on the sheet.
- Choose where the pinyin goes: on every character, or only on characters above an HSK level your class has finished.
- Check the pinyin, which appears above each character as you type. Click a character to remove its pinyin everywhere, or hover over it to remove it in one spot or pick a different reading. Click between characters when you want to type.
- Print on US Letter or A4, or save it as a PDF. Long texts run onto as many pages as they need, and a line of characters is never split from its pinyin.
Chinese with pinyin, a few examples
These come straight out of the tool. Most of the work in adding pinyin is picking the right reading, because a lot of common characters have more than one. Whole words are looked up first, which is how 行 becomes háng in 银行 and stays xíng everywhere else.
| Chinese with pinyin | Pinyin | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 我们一起去银行。 | wǒmen yìqǐ qù yínháng. | 一 before a third tone is yì, and 行 is háng inside 银行. 行 |
| 一个人 | yíge rén | 个 is neutral here but fourth tone underneath, so 一 is yí. 一 |
| 不是我的。 | búshì wǒ de. | 不 before a fourth tone is bú. 不 |
| 第一天 | dìyī tiān | An ordinal keeps yī. 第 |
| 十一月一号 | shíyī yuè yī hào | Numbers and dates keep yī. 号 |
| 你看一看。 | nǐ kàn yi kàn. | 一 between a repeated verb is neutral. 看 |
| 他长大了，头发也很长。 | tā zhǎngdà le, tóufa yě hěn cháng. | 长 is zhǎng in 长大 and cháng on its own. 长 |
| 请你重新写一遍。 | qǐng nǐ chóngxīn xiě yí biàn. | 重 is chóng in 重新; 一 before a fourth tone is yí. 重 |
| 我觉得他在睡觉。 | wǒ juéde tā zài shuìjiào. | 觉 is jué in 觉得 and jiào in 睡觉. 觉 |
| 我们得走了。 | wǒmen děi zǒu le. | 得 straight after a pronoun means "must", děi. 得 |
Pinyin only where your class needs it
A text covered in pinyin gets read as pinyin. Students' eyes go to the letters and skip the characters, which is the opposite of what a reading sheet is for. So the level menu leaves pinyin off everything your class has already covered. Pick “characters above HSK 2” and the 600 characters of HSK 1 and 2 print bare, while everything newer keeps its pinyin.
The levels come from the HSK 3.0 character lists, the same ones our text difficulty checker uses, so the two tools agree about what “above HSK 3” means. Characters that are on no HSK list at all, like most names, always get pinyin. If your class knows a character the list puts higher, click it and the pinyin goes, everywhere in your texts. Click it again to bring the pinyin back.
How 一 and 不 are printed
Dictionaries list 一 as yī and 不 as bù, but nobody says them that way in most phrases, and most textbooks print the tones people actually use. This tool does the same.
- 一 is yí before a fourth tone (一个 yí ge, 一样 yíyàng) and yì before the other tones (一天 yì tiān, 一起 yìqǐ).
- 一 stays yī on its own, at the end of a word (统一), in counting (一二三), in ordinals and dates (第一, 十一, 一月, 一号) and in 星期一.
- 一 between a repeated verb is neutral: 看一看 kàn yi kàn.
- 不 is bú before a fourth tone (不是 bú shì, 不对 bú duì) and bù everywhere else. In 好不好 and 对不起 it is neutral.
Those are the only tone changes it makes. Two third tones in a row are still printed as written, so 你好 is nǐ hǎo. If you'd rather print dictionary tones throughout, hover over any 一 or 不 and choose yī or bù. If tones are new to your class, our beginner's guide to Chinese tones explains all four, and the pinyin chart lets you hear every syllable in each tone.
Reading sheets for your class
The sheets have the same header, name and date lines and footer as our stroke order worksheets and the Chinese quiz generator, so a reading text, the writing practice for its new characters and a quiz on them all look like one set. Put a week's readings on one handout as separate texts, or give each its own page.
Not sure a text suits your class? Paste it into the text difficulty checker first. It shows the HSK level and lists the characters above it, which are the ones that will keep their pinyin here. If you just need the pinyin as a line of text to copy, the online Chinese keyboard does that, and the pinyin tone converter turns tone numbers into tone marks.
What this tool gets wrong
Picking a reading without understanding the sentence is guesswork with good odds, and I'd rather you knew the odds. I tested it on about 400 sentences built around the characters that are hardest to read, like 了, 行, 长, 重, 得, 地, 还, 为, 都 and 觉. On sentences it had never seen, it got about nine in ten of those characters right. Most characters only have one reading, so across a whole text the error rate is far lower. These are the mistakes I know about:
- 长 as the verb “to grow” outside a word, as in 他比我长两岁, prints cháng instead of zhǎng.
- 重 meaning “again” before a verb the dictionary does not list, as in 重写, prints zhòng instead of chóng.
- 为 can be read with the wrong word: 为人民 comes out as wéirén mín rather than wèi rénmín.
- 得 straight after a pronoun is read as děi (“must”), so 他得过奖 comes out wrong.
- 种 as the verb “to plant” (种树) and 好 as hào (好学) get the commoner reading.
- 一 as “first” without 第, as in 一楼 or 一年级, prints yì instead of yī.
- Neutral tones follow the dictionary, so 一个 prints yí ge, and some textbooks print yí gè. 儿 after a syllable prints as r.
- Names and places that are not in the dictionary are read character by character.
Every one of these takes a hover and a click to fix in the box, and the dotted lines show you which characters have more than one reading.
Questions
Is it free?
Yes. There's no account and no limit on how many sheets you print. It runs in your browser, so it costs us nothing to let you use it as much as you like.
Can I leave out pinyin for characters my students already know?
Yes, in two ways. Pick a level from the menu, like characters above HSK 2, and every character from HSK 1 and 2 prints without pinyin. Then click any character to remove its pinyin everywhere in your texts, whatever the level says, and click it again to bring it back. Hover over a character to remove the pinyin in just that one spot. Reset to preset undoes all of it.
How does it handle 一 and 不?
It prints the tones most textbooks print. 一 is yí before a fourth tone and yì before the others, and stays yī on its own, in numbers, dates and ordinals like 第一. 不 is bú before a fourth tone. No other tone changes are applied, so 你好 prints nǐ hǎo.
What if a reading is wrong?
Hover over the character, or press and hold it on a phone, and pick the right one. Every character with more than one reading has a dotted line under its pinyin, so you know where to look. A reading you choose changes that one place only.
Can I put several texts on one handout?
Yes. Add as many texts as you like, each with its own title if you want one. They print one after another, or each on its own page if you tick that box on the print screen. A long text simply runs onto as many pages as it needs.
Can I print on A4?
Yes. The print screen switches between US Letter and A4, and a slider makes the text smaller or bigger. It remembers your choice next time.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. The dictionary is downloaded to your browser and the pinyin is added on your own device.
Does it work with traditional characters?
Mostly. The dictionary has readings for traditional characters too, but the HSK lists are simplified, so every traditional character counts as outside HSK and always gets pinyin. To convert a text first, use our simplified to traditional converter in the other direction.