Pinyin to Chinese convertor (and vice versa)

[Sinisa]

Hello,

I need Pinyin to Chinese Hansi convertor (in both directions).

 

Are there some recommendations? Online or standalone resources...

 

Thanks

[Luxi]

I use Google Translate, you paste the Chinese and pinyin appears automatically in a box below.

I don't think Baidu Translate has a similar pinyin conversion.

 

Purpleculture also has a Chinese pinyin conversion among its tools:

https://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-pinyin-converter/

 

I don't know about pinyin-Hanzi converters, I wouldn't trust them.

[imron]

57 minutes ago, Luxi said:

I don't know about pinyin-Hanzi converters, I wouldn't trust them.

I wouldn't trust Hanzi->Pinyin converters either.  Even with the better ones, you'll probably get an error or two per paragraph of text, so don't use it for anything that you aren't in a position to read and double check it for yourself.  Sometimes you'll even get errors for short sentences where the context is explicitly clear.

[DavyJonesLocker]

Yeah the Google one does give errors but it's good as a blunt tool. Handy for long texts when you need a quick reminder of a word. 

[Lu]

If you need a reminder for one word, I'd recommend a sharper tool (Pleco is a good one).

[Sinisa]

Thanks all. Well the only possible way for a foreigner to get a grasp on pronunciation of Hanzi characters is to convert them to Pinyin.

[Shelley]

Yes that is true to start with but as you progress you should use characters and not rely on pinyin.

 

I am a great believer in starting to learn characters almost straight away.

 

You will never be fully fluent or competent in Chinese unless you learn characters.

 

I would agree with Lu and suggest you invest in a copy of Pleco for your smart phone or tablet or both. It is an indispensable tool for students of Chinese .

 

[Sinisa]

Millions of Chinese are fluent in their language yet they can't read/write it. My goal/priority for now is basic verbal communication. Later I'll memorize the characters, depending on other things - fluency is in the long run.

I'll check Pleco, thanks.

[Shelley]

 

33 minutes ago, Sinisa said:

Millions of Chinese are fluent in their language yet they can't read/write it

I don't think that is any good reason for you not learn characters, anyway you will do what you need to do and I hope you get the best results.

 

96% of adults are literate. I think that is a good ratio.

 

Source: https://knoema.com/atlas/China/topics/Education/Literacy/Adult-literacy-rate

 

P.S. IMHO they are not fluent, they can just speak Chinese very well.

[Sinisa]

1 minute ago, Shelley said:

96% of adults are literate. I think that is a good ratio.

 

Certainly it is improved, but that still means 50 million of illiterate. 

 

 

From my point of view, I tend to invest my time/effort into the activities that make a return of some kind. In the moment, regarding Chinese language, that is verbal communication. Learning Chinese script from beginning would make me quit the whole thing. It is simply not useful to me at the moment.

[imron]

1 hour ago, Sinisa said:

Well the only possible way for a foreigner to get a grasp on pronunciation of Hanzi characters is to convert them to Pinyin.

So long as it's converting to correct pinyin, and you are able to tell the difference

 

49 minutes ago, Sinisa said:

It is simply not useful to me at the moment.

This is likely true, but keep in mind that you will very quickly run in to a wall due to the dearth of pinyin-only material once you get beyond beginner level.

[Sinisa]

I'm using this one: https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary

 

Is it good?

 

OT: My personal goal is to be no worse-off than this guy 

 

https://youtu.be/lgViBDymS-I?t=1m41s

[DavyJonesLocker]

that one is fine, although keep in mind even simply high frequency characters can have differ pinyin like

 睡觉  (shuìjiào) and 觉得 (juéde) 

着急 (zháo jí) and 着 (zhe)

地 (de) and 址 (dì zhǐ)

目的 (de) and 目的 (mù dì)

 

 

3 hours ago, Sinisa said:

Learning Chinese script from beginning would make me quit the whole thing.

 

 

I had the exact same views at the start. 

Shelly and Imron are correct in that learning characters is a must if you want to get anywhere past the basics. I avoided it at the start (as I was using Pimsleur) but in hindsight i wish i did it from day one. Even the top 100 characters can be very useful to get an idea of what's going on. Would only take a 10days at 30mins  day max. I am all for optimising learning  so perhaps can revisit your strategy after a period of time should you feel you have the interest. 

 

(The illiterate folks in china are in a native speaking environment)

[Sinisa]

Regarding Chinese script, nobody has the clue how to pronounce signs let alone to know their meaning. That includes kids who are learning Chinese as their native tongue. So they have to memorise character by character (primary+secondary education). Yeah I know it is a feature of non-phonetic script, but the foreigners didn't introduce Pinyin (although prior to it they have created earlier standards), but the Chinese government itself, along with the reform from traditional to simplified script (that tells something doesn't it?).

 

So, the beginner must be able to:

1) recognize the letter/sign (among the others),

2) know how to pronounce it,

3) know the meaning,

and, if the writing is involved,

4) actually know how to produce/write/draw the symbol.

 

The pinyin is the intermediate solution, it enables pronunciation but even writing pinyin is not easy because of the tonal markers. With the modern translators, user can convert it to Hanzi  and to start to memorise characters. I believe it is a slow and gradual process, and it depends on other things (exposure to Chinese culture probably being the most important factor).

 

For instance, in beginner's course that I've been pursuing, there are around 500 words there to be remembered. I do see some structural bonding between some symbols (for example same starting/ending symbol), but even the recognition is troublesome, let alone pronunciation, meaning and reproducing the letter (as I've prior said).

Even if I'd be able to do 1), 2) and 3), I'm terrible at drawing what I believe those characters require to be able to reproduce them. 

 

http://docdro.id/76Fru8W

[Lu]

2 hours ago, Sinisa said:

OT: My personal goal is to be no worse-off than this guy 

 

https://youtu.be/lgViBDymS-I?t=1m41s

Seeing that Roberto Benigni (that guy) won an Oscar, you have a long and steep road ahead of you :-D

[Sinisa]

Just now, Lu said:

Seeing that Roberto Benigni (that guy) won an Oscar, you have a long and steep road ahead of you :-D

 

Well, he is very well known in the Western world, I've adressed him as a 'guy' because I don't know the origin of the commentators here 

And, of course, I've addressed only his perceived Chinese learning skills 

[Lu]

2 minutes ago, Sinisa said:

With the modern translators, user can convert it to Hanzi

This does not work reliably. I guess you can convert pinyin to characters for simple sentences, but it's not something you can use as a crutch.

 

3 minutes ago, Sinisa said:

there are around 500 words there to be remembered. I do see some structural bonding between some symbols (for example same starting/ending symbol), but even the recognition is troublesome

This is why you need to start with simple characters (人, 山, 木, things like that), then learn some radicals, then build from there. Nobody learns 我整天都在打喷嚏 in lesson 1. Start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) and you'll see it's not random squiggles.

 

5 minutes ago, Sinisa said:

I'm terrible at drawing what I believe those characters require to be able to reproduce them

Writing characters is much more related to writing the abc than to drawing.

 

If you decide that you only want to learn basic Chinese and make simple conversation, of course that is up to you and I applaud you for learning Chinese at all. But if you decide to not learn characters, make sure you do it for the right reasons and don't be held back because you can't draw or are afraid characters are too complicated.

[ZC]

Hey! If your plan is to mainly learn spoken Chinese more than written, that’s certainly fair but I think at that point you will quickly run out of written material that caters to your plan of study. you’ll have to get a tutor to get reliably well beyond the very basics! As to the viability of not learning characters, just take a look at how often you read in your native language, it’s probably thousands of times daily! Then imagine that one in fifty words was wrong in all of that, it’s about the error rate you will run into on a pretty good converter and it’s high enough that most of what you read would be really tough to comprehend! If you just learn the characters as you go you’ll have a way better time in my opinion (also it really does start to become more like writing than drawing, if you look at native speakers’ handwriting it’s pretty clear that it has all the laziness you would expect from a phonetic written language! As a side note when you see bilingual speakers handwriting in English and Chinese they look really strangely similar even in totally different writing systems!)

[imron]

6 hours ago, Sinisa said:

4) actually know how to produce/write/draw the symbol.

This is probably the most time consuming part, but in the modern world, you don't really need to be able to do this.  Most modern input methods are based on pinyin and so long as you can type the pinyin and recognise the Chinese, that's usually enough.

[Sinisa]

14 hours ago, Lu said:

Writing characters is much more related to writing the abc than to drawing.

 

If you decide that you only want to learn basic Chinese and make simple conversation, of course that is up to you and I applaud you for learning Chinese at all. But if you decide to not learn characters, make sure you do it for the right reasons and don't be held back because you can't draw or are afraid characters are too complicated.

 

As I said,  if I'd ever attain lets say, 30%-50% of the knowledge of illiterate Chinese people, who are fluent but incompetent in writing and reading, that would be an extraordinary goal for me. As I've researched, pinyin is good up to intermediate level, although it is true that the Hanzi script from there definitively takes over.

In that way, I can progress faster, focus on pronunciation and understanding spoken language, learning phrases etc. - even maybe take ocassional look on some Hanzi characters.

Personally I think that is overwhelming to do all from the beginning and it would put me off. Of course, it depends on the one's personal aims. Less is more. When you take Hanzi off, you progress faster - up to a certain level. After getting there, one can revisit all learned material regarding Hanzi. Think about it.

 

Another thing, Hanzi characters are simply too small in learning books, I would waste additional time to magnify them and to mess with their structure. Somebody said that drawing is not required? Take a look at word thanks: 谢谢 What a mess!