Last week I was reading a WeChat message someone sent me — full of characters I didn’t recognize. I needed pinyin above every word, fast. So I built one: a free browser tool that annotates any Chinese text with pinyin instantly.
No app to install. No account. Paste text, click Annotate, done.
Try It Free
→ Open the Pinyin Annotator (works in any browser, offline after first load)
What It Does
Paste any Chinese text — a news article, a WeChat message, subtitles, a textbook passage — and the tool places the correct pinyin above every character it recognizes. The built-in dictionary covers 2,500+ characters, which handles roughly 97% of common written Chinese.
Three things make it more useful than a simple copy-paste into Google Translate:
- Tone colors: First tone = red. Second = orange. Third = green. Fourth = purple. Neutral = grey. You stop reading the diacritics and start feeling the tones visually.
- HSK level highlight: Turn this on and every character is color-coded by vocabulary level — HSK1 through HSK6. Instantly see whether a text is above your level or review territory.
- Click any character: A popup shows the pinyin, tone number, and HSK level. Useful for characters that look similar or have multiple readings.
Who It’s For
I built this primarily for intermediate learners (HSK3–5) who can read some Chinese but still hit unknown characters constantly. At that level, a full dictionary lookup breaks your flow. Inline pinyin lets you keep reading while noting what to study later.
It’s also useful if you’re a complete beginner trying to read something above your level — song lyrics, a menu, a sign you photographed. The annotated output makes any Chinese text approachable.
How It Compares to Other Options
Most “pinyin annotator” tools I found online were either paywalled, required login, sent your text to a server, or had terrible UI. I wanted something that:
- Works offline after the first load (the dictionary is embedded in the HTML file)
- Doesn’t send your text anywhere
- Doesn’t require an account
- Actually looks good
The whole thing is a single HTML file. You can download it and it works with no internet connection. The source is on GitHub if you want to fork it or check the dictionary.
What’s in the Dictionary
2,500+ characters covering all of HSK1–6 plus common additional characters. For each character the dictionary stores the most common reading (polyphonic characters get their primary pronunciation), the tone number (1–4 or neutral), and the HSK level. Characters outside the dictionary show a “?” — there aren’t many in normal text.
Related Tools
If you want to go deeper on what you read, try the Chinese Reading Lab — 10 historical stories in Chinese (HSK4–6) with comprehension questions. Or the Chengyu Stories tool for the idioms that appear in everything you’ll ever read in Chinese.
All tools are free, offline, and listed at ordinarymantrying.com/tools.
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