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HanCam · Free pinyin tool
What is pinyin? Pinyin vs zhuyin (bopomofo)
Pinyin and zhuyin are two ways to write the sounds of Mandarin. Paste Chinese text, or type pinyin or zhuyin, and see both, syllable by syllable. The explanation follows below.
Pinyin and zhuyin
Paste Chinese text or type pinyin or zhuyin. Pinyin and zhuyin appear here.
Readings of Chinese characters are chosen from the surrounding words. They are right most of the time, not always. Typed pinyin can have tone marks or tone numbers.
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What pinyin is
Chinese characters do not show how a word is pronounced. Pinyin (Hanyu Pinyin, 汉语拼音) does: it writes the sounds of Mandarin with the Latin alphabet and four tone marks. 中国 is written Zhōngguó. Mainland China adopted it in 1958, and since 1982 it has been the international standard for writing Chinese in Latin letters (ISO 7098).
Pinyin is how children in mainland China and Singapore learn to read, how most people type Chinese on phones and computers, how dictionaries are sorted, and how Chinese names and places are spelled in other languages. It shows pronunciation. It does not replace the characters.
What zhuyin (bopomofo) is
Zhuyin (注音符號) writes the same sounds with 37 symbols of its own instead of Latin letters. The everyday name bopomofo comes from the first four: ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ, which are b, p, m and f. It dates from the 1910s and is the system of Taiwan: children learn to read with it, schoolbooks print it beside the characters, and most people there type with it.
A zhuyin syllable has at most three symbols: one for the initial, one for a middle i, u or ü, and one for the rest. Where pinyin needs six letters for zhuang, zhuyin writes
How pinyin and zhuyin map to each other
Both systems describe the same syllables, so every pinyin syllable has exactly one zhuyin spelling. The consonants match one to one:
So do the vowels and endings:
Longer finals take two symbols: ian is
Tones in both systems
| Tone | Pinyin | Zhuyin |
|---|---|---|
| 1st tone | mā | |
| 2nd tone | má | |
| 3rd tone | mǎ | |
| 4th tone | mà | |
| Neutral tone | ma |
Pinyin puts the tone mark on a vowel. Zhuyin puts it after the syllable, or beside it in vertical text. The 1st tone has a mark in pinyin and none in zhuyin. The neutral tone has none in pinyin and a dot in front of the syllable in zhuyin.
Which one to learn
For most learners, pinyin: nearly every textbook, dictionary and app outside Taiwan uses it, and it is how Chinese is typed on an ordinary keyboard. Zhuyin is worth learning if you study or live in Taiwan, or read Taiwanese children's books, which print it next to every character. Some teachers prefer it because its symbols cannot be mistaken for English letters.
Neither system is more exact than the other. They are two notations for the same pronunciation.
Pinyin for Chinese you cannot copy
This tool needs text that you can paste or type. For a sign, a menu or a page of a book, HanCam reads Chinese with the camera of your iPhone or iPad and shows the characters, the pinyin with tone marks and the meaning together. It reads Simplified and Traditional characters. The app shows pinyin, not zhuyin.
Read Chinese you cannot copy: signs, menus, books and screenshots.
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Questions and answers
What is pinyin?
Pinyin is the standard way to write the sounds of Mandarin Chinese with Latin letters and tone marks. 你好 is nǐ hǎo in pinyin. It shows how the characters are pronounced, and it is how most people type Chinese.
Is bopomofo the same as zhuyin?
Yes. Zhuyin, in full Zhuyin fuhao, is the official name. Bopomofo is the everyday name, made from its first four symbols ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ.
Who uses zhuyin instead of pinyin?
Mainly Taiwan, where children learn it in their first weeks of primary school and where it is used for typing and in dictionaries. Mainland China, Singapore and most courses for foreign learners use pinyin.
How do I convert pinyin to zhuyin, or zhuyin to pinyin?
Type the pinyin into the box at the top of this page, with tone marks or tone numbers: zhōng guó or zhong1 guo2. The zhuyin appears under each syllable:
Does Taiwan use pinyin?
For street signs and place names, officially yes: Taiwan made Hanyu Pinyin its standard romanization in 2009, although older spellings remain in many names. For teaching children to read and for typing, Taiwan uses zhuyin.
Are the pinyin and zhuyin on this page always right?
For typed pinyin the zhuyin is exact, because the two systems map one to one. For Chinese characters the reading is chosen from the surrounding words, which is right most of the time; characters with several readings, names and rare characters can be wrong. The readings follow mainland usage, and a few words are pronounced differently in Taiwan.