Pinyin Text to Speech: Hear Pinyin Read Aloud with Chinese Characters
Searching for pinyin text to speech usually means one of two things: you have pinyin and want to hear it, or you have Chinese characters and want pinyin to follow along. The reader does the second job well and the first one only indirectly, because it speaks Chinese characters and displays pinyin over them. This guide explains the difference and shows how to get what you need.
What the reader does with pinyin
It takes Chinese characters as input, speaks them with a Mandarin voice, and shows pinyin with tone marks above each character while it plays.
Pinyin is a romanisation: a way to write how Chinese sounds using Latin letters and tone marks. The reader generates pinyin from the characters you give it and displays it above them, together with a highlighted current sentence. You can switch the pinyin off when you want to test yourself.
This is why the characters are required. Latin-letter pinyin on its own is ambiguous, because many different characters share one syllable, so there is no reliable way to know which word you meant.
If you only have pinyin
Turn the pinyin into characters first, then paste the characters into the reader.
Use a pinyin input method on your computer or phone to type the words as characters, or a pinyin-to-character converter if you have a long text. Check the result: the converter has to guess between homophones, and a wrong character will be spoken as that character, not as the word you intended.
Once you have characters, paste them into the web reader, or select them in Chrome with the extension, and press play. The pinyin you started with should reappear above the characters. If it does not match, you have found a mistake in the conversion.
Follow the tone marks while you listen
Play one sentence at a time, compare the tone marks with what you hear, and slow the speed down when a syllable is unclear.
Tone marks sit over the vowel: mā, má, mǎ, mà. A neutral tone has no mark. Third tones are the ones that most often sound different from how they are written, because two third tones in a row change.
| Written | Often heard as | Why |
|---|---|---|
| nǐ hǎo | ní hǎo | Two third tones in a row |
| bù shì | bú shì | bù changes before a fourth tone |
| yī gè | yí gè | yī changes before a fourth tone |
- Listen once without pinyin.
- Play again with pinyin and compare the tone marks.
- Slow to 0.75x and repeat each sentence aloud.
Limits to know
The reader does not accept pinyin as spoken input, does not grade your pronunciation, and generates speech online.
Daily limits are 3,000 characters without signing in and 5,000 with a Google account. A heteronym, a character with more than one reading, can be given the wrong pinyin out of context; check unusual words in a dictionary.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I type pinyin and hear it?
- Not directly. The reader speaks Chinese characters. Convert pinyin to characters first, then paste them in.
- Can I hide the pinyin?
- Yes. You can turn it off in the panel and on the website.
- Does it show tone marks?
- Yes, pinyin is shown with tone marks above the characters.
Related reading
- How to Use Chinese Text to Speech: Voices, Pinyin, Speed, PDF and Chrome
- Chinese Reader with Pinyin: Read Mandarin Aloud
- Chinese Tones Listening Practice: Four Tones, Tone Changes and Drills
- How to Pronounce Chinese: Hear Words and Sentences with Pinyin
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