Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Adding Pinyin with Tones to Documents

It's extremely important when giving our students worksheets and texts we have created to use pinyin with tones accurately!  The easiest way we've found is to use an online tool which translated characters to pinyin.  I use Chinese Tools Pinyin Editor

Here are the steps:

1)  Copy your text (in Chinese characters) into the box on the website.
2)  Choose "Separate."  This allows you to copy only the pinyin into your document, line by line.
3)  Click "pinyin."  The text with pinyin will appear below the box.
4)  Copy the pinyin OR pinyin with characters into your document, clean it up, and choose your fonts.

Tips for keeping your students' eyes focused on the characters: 
  • Center the pinyin under the characters, NOT on top.  
  • Use a (much) larger font for characters than for pinyin.
In case the above link did not work, here's the web address:  http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/pinyin.html
Please share your recommended techniques for adding pinyin to documents!

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