Literacy - Pinyin & Characters

Why read this article? (please note a pdf is available below - scroll down)

·          You are looking for new resources for learning Chinese characters ( in schoosl with children)

Here are a couple of excellent tools to help you write pinyin with tone marks.

1. Pinyinput

Pinyinput is an excellent tool to easily produce pinyin with tone marks. It was written by a user of www.chinese-forums.com called Imron Imron has written an excellent and easy to use tool for producing pinyin with tones. It can be used in what is called a ‘checked’ and ‘unchecked’ mode as follows:

Checked Mode:

Only accepts (mostly) valid pīnyīn (mostly valid in that it only checks for correct combinations of initials and finals, and not valid/invalid combinations of tones). When typing, if you place a number at the end of a pīnyīn syllable then Pinyinput will automatically convert the correct vowel in the syllable so that it has the appropriate tone e.g. Typing Ni3hao3 will produce the output Nǐhǎo.

Unchecked Mode:

There are different ways of getting your computer to write Chinese characters.

1. Microsoft Office Input Method Editor (IME)

All Microsoft Office applications allow you to set up your PC for pinyin Input for Simplified AND Traditional Chinese characters. Once set-up you will be able to ‘switch’ from using English to pinyin input.

How do I set-up my PC? 

A simple set-up guide for a typical Window XP PC is attached to this article

If you have older versions of Windows or Vista there are some excellent guides available on Pinyin Joe’s website http://www.pinyinjoe.com Pinyin Joe also has some additional useful tips about how to efficiently use the pinyin input and ways that you can adjust setting to allow for faster or slower input methods.

Once Set up, how do I type?

Launch Word.