Pinyin Text Annotator

The Pinyin Text Annotator turns any Chinese passage into textbook-style annotated reading material: paste a sentence, a paragraph, or a whole article and every word comes back with its pinyin printed directly above the characters in ruby format — the same layout used in graded readers and children's books in China — and its English meaning underneath. Prefer a hanzi-and-pinyin-only view? Toggle the English line off and the meanings move to a hover (or tap) tooltip instead.

Because Chinese is written without spaces between words, the annotator first segments the text — it walks through your input and, at each point, takes the longest run of characters that forms a real dictionary word. That same in-memory dictionary supplies the pinyin (aligned syllable-by-syllable above each character) and the English meaning for every word. Both Simplified and Traditional characters are recognized, and the whole process is instant — no translation API involved.

For example, the sample line 我每天早上喝一杯咖啡，然后去公司上班。 comes back as eleven words:

每天, 咖啡 and 上班 stay whole because each is the longest real word at its position. When a word has more than one reading, like 喝, the tool lists them all and lets you click the meaning that fits. The pinyin is the dictionary (citation) form — in speech 一杯 is said yì bēi, which the Tone Sandhi Checker shows.

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Transcript

1. Chinese has no spaces, so where does each word end?
2. The annotator walks through the text and splits it into words,
3. 我每天早上
4. At each point, it takes the longest run that forms a real word.
5. Then the same dictionary adds pinyin above and English below,
6. 咖啡 (kāfēi)
7. Longest real word first, then pinyin and English.

It's built for teachers preparing worksheets — use the Print button for a clean, ad-free handout — and for learners who want to read real Chinese without stopping to look up every word. Want text that is already annotated? The graded readers are short stories with ruby pinyin and tap-to-define built in, graded HSK 1 to HSK 4. For a full translation instead, try the Chinese Translator, or check how hard a text is with the HSK Level Analyzer.

What is the Pinyin Text Annotator?

A free tool that adds pinyin and English to any Chinese text you paste in. It splits the text into words, looks each up in an in-memory Chinese dictionary, and renders the pinyin in ruby format above the characters — the layout used in Chinese textbooks — with the English meaning under each word (toggle it off for hanzi and pinyin only). Nothing is stored.

How does it know where each word starts and ends?

Chinese has no spaces between words, so the annotator uses greedy longest-match segmentation against an in-memory Chinese dictionary: at each position it takes the longest sequence of characters that forms a known word. The same dictionary provides the pinyin and meanings.

Can I print or copy the result?

Print produces a clean handout with only the annotated text — perfect for classroom worksheets. Copy copies the text as hanzi(pinyin), e.g. 你好(nǐ hǎo), ready to paste anywhere.

Does it work with Traditional characters?

Yes — words are matched against both the Simplified and Traditional dictionaries, so either script (or mixed text) gets annotated.