Pinyin & Tone Helper
Convert Chinese characters to pinyin with tone marks, and listen to the pronunciation. No login needed.
Type Chinese characters to see pinyin with tones.
What pinyin is, and what the tone marks mean
Hanyu Pinyin is the official Romanisation system for Standard Chinese, used everywhere from street signs to dictionaries. It writes a syllable as an initial consonant, a final vowel sound, and a tone mark over the vowel. The letters are not pronounced as English — for instance, "x" is a soft hissing sound somewhere between English "s" and "sh", and "q" resembles a sharp "ch".
Mandarin has four main tones plus a neutral one. The same syllable spoken in different tones is a different word entirely: mā (妈) is mother, má (麻) is hemp, mǎ (马) is horse, and mà (骂) is to scold. Tone marks are not decoration — they are part of the spelling.
Why tones matter when choosing a name
If you are choosing a Chinese name, the tones determine how it sounds when spoken aloud, and a name that reads well on paper can be awkward — or accidentally comic — when said. Checking the tones before you commit is the cheapest way to avoid a name you have to apologise for later.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I write my name in pinyin?
- Type the Chinese characters and Eastve converts them to pinyin with tone marks. Write the name as it appears in Chinese — surname first — and keep the tone marks, because the same syllable with a different tone is a different word.
- Why are there marks above the letters?
- They are tone marks. Mandarin uses four tones to distinguish words that share the same sounds: mā, má, mǎ and mà are four different words. Dropping the marks makes a name ambiguous for anyone reading it.
- Is pinyin the same as Chinese characters?
- No. Pinyin is a pronunciation aid written in the Latin alphabet; it is not a writing system. Chinese text is written in characters, and pinyin shows how those characters are pronounced, especially for learners and in dictionaries.
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