chinopinyin Posted January 8, 2010 at 06:55 PM Report Share Posted January 8, 2010 at 06:55 PM Which is the best free hanzi to pinyin converter? Adsotrans http://www.popupchinese.com/tools/adso ZDT http://zdt.sourceforge.net/ Google Translate http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN|zh-CN| Dofufa http://chinesetopinyin.dofufa.com/ Chinese-tools http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/pinyin.html Other Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanyu_xuesheng Posted January 9, 2010 at 12:28 PM Report Share Posted January 9, 2010 at 12:28 PM Just made a little test with these 4 sentences: 我受不了了。 Wǒ shòubuliǎo le. 发展经济，保障供给。 Fāzhǎn jīngjì, bǎozhàng gōngjǐ. 他个子虽小，力气却很大。 Tā gèzi suī xiǎo, lìqi què hěn dà. 他对滚石乐很感兴趣。 Tā duì gǔnshíyuè hěn gǎn xìngqù. Wenlin (no "segment first"): Wǒ shòubuliǎo 【◎Fix:◎le;◎liǎo;◎liāo;◎liào;◎liáo】. Fāzhǎn jīngjì，bǎozhàng gōngjǐ. Tā gèzi suī xiǎo，lìqi què hěn 【◎Fix:◎dà;◎dài】. Tā duì gǔn 【◎Fix:◎shí;◎dàn】 【◎Fix:◎lè;◎yuè】 hěn gǎn xìngqù. You have to fix 4 items Adso http://www.popupchinese.com/tools/adso wǒ shòu buliǎo le. fāzhǎnjīngjì, bǎozhàng gōnggěi. tā gèzi suī xiǎo, lìqi què hěn dà. tā duì gǔnshílè hěn gǎnxìngqù. 2 mistakes: gōnggěi, gǔnshílè Google http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN|zh-CN wǒ shòu bù liǎo le。 fā zhǎn jīng jì， bǎo zhàng gōng jǐ。 tā gè zi suī xiǎo， lì qì què hěn dà。 tā duì gǔn shí lè hěn gǎn xìng qù。 1 mistake: gǔn shí lè; word boundaries not displayed http://chinesetopinyin.dofufa.com/ wǒ shòu bù le le fǎ zhǎn jīng jì bǎo zhàng gōng gěi tā gè zǐ suī xiǎo lì qì què hěn dà tā duì gǔn shí lè hěn gǎn xìng qù 5 mistakes: shòu bù le, gè zǐ, lì qì, gōng gěi, gǔn shí lè; word boundaries not displayed, no punctuation marks. http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/pinyin.html wǒ shòu bùliǎo liǎo / le fāzhǎn jīngjì bǎozhàng gōngjǐ tā gèzi suī xiǎo lìqì què hěn dài / dà tā duì gǔn shí / dàn lè / lé / yuè hěn gǎn xìngqù You have to fix 4 items; 1 mistake: lìqì; no punctuation marks http://www.purpleculture.net/Chinese-Character-Pinyin-Converter-Online.asp wǒ shòu bù liǎo le fā zhǎn jīng jì bǎo zhàng gōng jǐ tā gè zi suī xiǎo lì qi què hěn dà tā duì gǔn dàn lè hěn gǎn xìng qu 2 mistakes: gǔn dàn lè, xìng qu; word boundaries not displayed, no punctuation marks, C&P unhandy. Conclusion: All tools are disappointing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chinopinyin Posted January 9, 2010 at 03:30 PM Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2010 at 03:30 PM hanyu_xuesheng, thanks a lot for the comparison but Is the state of pinyin converters that bad or are you simply using somewhat tricky sentences to test them? Does everybody think they are useless? or simply that they have problems, but it is still worth using them? No converter is willing to speak up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted January 9, 2010 at 03:34 PM Report Share Posted January 9, 2010 at 03:34 PM I'm happy with the converter that comes with the pinyin toolkit for anki. Of course there are some mistakes from time to time, but in a wordlist context is even less than in a sentence. One complaint I have with them is when you feed single characters into it, and the character happens to be a duoyinzi, it usually doesn't come up with the most common reading, but with the reading that comes first in its database. (ideally it would come up with all the readings, but that's not what it's been designed to do) Chinopinyin, I don't think that the sentences used by hanyu_xuesheng were particularly tricky. I guess parsing technology just has a ways to go for Chinese. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanyu_xuesheng Posted January 9, 2010 at 08:42 PM Report Share Posted January 9, 2010 at 08:42 PM @chinopinyin I chose of course some sentences that may have some "difficulties" for converters that are poorly programmed ;-) 我受不了了。 Wǒ shòubuliǎo le. Two 了 with different Pinyin. 发展经济，保障供给。 Fāzhǎn jīngjì, bǎozhàng gōngjǐ. 给 is pronounced here jǐ, not gěi. 他个子虽小，力气却很大。 Tā gèzi suī xiǎo, lìqi què hěn dà. 个 in 个子 is pronounced gè, not ge. 他对滚石乐很感兴趣。 Tā duì gǔnshíyuè hěn gǎn xìngqù. 滚石乐 is rather seldom IMHO, 乐 must be yuè, not lè. Even in simple texts you may find quite a lot of those problems. And especially for beginners the Pinyin should be correct! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chinopinyin Posted January 10, 2010 at 07:27 AM Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2010 at 07:27 AM @hanyu_xuesheng Thanks a lot for such detailed comparisons and explanations. Yours are the kind of posts well worth reading. It seems clear that all current pinyin converters are flawed, though from your examples it appears that Adsotrans and Google have some comparative advantange. But should I do use them with caution, being aware that they are not perfect, or simply do not use them at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knadolny Posted January 14, 2010 at 01:36 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2010 at 01:36 PM use them with caution I use them from time to time but with extreme caution. There is nothing worse than studying the wrong way of saying something. I haven't found a good way for pinyin other than knowing the words before hand or verifying these results with another source like NCIKU or a native speaker. For Google: wǒ shòu bù liǎo le I'm not a fan of how they break up all the words instead of linking them together as they should be. I will have to check out Adso. Just made a little test with these 4 sentences: Thanks. This is helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted January 14, 2010 at 01:50 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2010 at 01:50 PM knadolny, I think before relying on pinyin converters, learning the most basic duoyinzi/poyinzi is key. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knadolny Posted January 14, 2010 at 02:01 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2010 at 02:01 PM I think before relying on pinyin converters, learning the most basic duoyinzi/poyinzi is key. I agree. I think you might have misinterpreted my post. That was basically my reply. I use the converters when I need to pinyin-ize something "quickly". However, I usually spend a lot of time fixing all the mistakes. Therefore, it's not really that much quicker. This way, I just don't have to type in all the accent marks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrix Posted January 14, 2010 at 02:06 PM Report Share Posted January 14, 2010 at 02:06 PM oh I was basically agreeing with you, so no misinterpretation there. I use converters for the same purpose... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevelyan Posted January 17, 2010 at 06:02 PM Report Share Posted January 17, 2010 at 06:02 PM Thanks for the correction hyxs. I won't speak for the others, but I think it's great that truly free alternatives like Adso are as good if not better than much more restrictive commercial software packages. That said, I would encourage people to post about these issues on Popup Chinese or message me about them, as I wouldn't have run into this thread if a friend didn't forward it. The easiest way to fix any issues with Adso is to make edits directly in the Popup Chinese Chinese-English dictionary or email our tech team. I've just made the edits for these particular entries myself. It will take about a month for these to go live on the site, but they will fix the two issues pointed out for perpetuity. Also a reminder that the engine can be downloaded here for those interested in doing more serious development work. Concerted efforts like this (at identifying weaknesses) are key to making long-term improvements to the algorithms used for word identification and spacing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chinopinyin Posted January 17, 2010 at 08:37 PM Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2010 at 08:37 PM I am also quite happy with Adso, although there is something that annoys me If you copy a list of sentences and ask Adso to pinyinize them carriage returns are lost So if I paste 请问，还有没有位子？ 有，有，有。那张桌子没有人。 二位要吃点儿什么？ 老王你点菜吧。 I get qǐngwèn, hái yǒu méiyǒu wèizi? yǒu, yǒu, yǒu. nà zhāng zhuōzi méi yǒu rén. èr wèi yào chī diǎnr shénme? Lǎo Wáng nǐ diǎncài ba. so I have to manually introduce carriage returns This is probably something that could easily be fixed by the Adso Team. Keep up with the good work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knadolny Posted January 19, 2010 at 03:14 AM Report Share Posted January 19, 2010 at 03:14 AM @trevelyan I am about to start my next book project and after reading this thread am planning on using ADSO for "pinyin"izing the Chinese text. I'm not a computer programmer so I can't help with that, but maybe I can help you out some other way. I will be using ADSO to get pinyin for a Chinese story, Ah Q, and then will read it line by line, character by character, to root out all the mistakes. I went through a similar process for my first book (see signature) and I can tell you this process was my least favorite part by far. I might have been better off without the converter. If ADSO can help make this process less painful I will be very grateful. Would you like to see my correction notes when I'm finished? My notes tend to be very haphazard, but might be worth something. I don't have date set, but will probably be done in the upcoming months. more restrictive commercial software packages. What are the commercial software packages? I am thinking of NJStar although I am not sure if it can "pinyin"ize characters since I don't use it. Are there others? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westmeadboy Posted February 8, 2010 at 03:13 PM Report Share Posted February 8, 2010 at 03:13 PM I would like to do Hanzi-pinyin conversion programmatically (preferably calling some online service but also interested in algorithms I can use for offline) so what are the best options for that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friday Posted January 6, 2011 at 05:49 AM Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 at 05:49 AM Is there any software or Web-based tool that can convert characters to pinyin (with tones) that can do it without errors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbradfor Posted January 6, 2011 at 02:34 PM Report Share Posted January 6, 2011 at 02:34 PM without errors Probably not, due to the large number of heteronyms. Would you settle for a few errors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris333 Posted January 16, 2011 at 02:50 PM Report Share Posted January 16, 2011 at 02:50 PM Hey gang, Haven't posted here for a while...been busy. Getting back into studying on my own now that I've stopped my tutoring and had a question; This website came up in a discussion somewhere on this forum a while back, but I can't find the discussion now; http://xh.5156edu.com/conversion.html My question is this; Is there a website for converting the other way, i.e.; pinyin to hanzi? I've been emailing people in Chinese using Google translate and MDBG, but the copy/paste process is very tedious. It would be great if I could just type pinyin with tones and get hanzi output. I know what to say in spoken Chinese, 但是我看不懂汉字! :-) Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chinopinyin Posted January 17, 2011 at 06:32 PM Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2011 at 06:32 PM You can use Google pinyin input method http://www.google.com/ime/pinyin/index.html This guide will help you set it up http://scattered-notes.blogspot.com/2007/04/translation-of-google-chinese-input.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris333 Posted January 22, 2011 at 02:50 PM Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 at 02:50 PM Know of a good one for the Mac? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hanyu_xuesheng Posted January 22, 2011 at 09:09 PM Report Share Posted January 22, 2011 at 09:09 PM The best input method for Mac is here: http://www.macqim.com/RegQIME.html see also here: http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/pages/input_methods.html#other Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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