Playground

Using the playground

Choose a sample or type Chinese text. The three tabs convert it to pinyin, create a URL slug or convert between simplified and traditional characters. Your edited text is shared across tabs. An unchanged sample switches to the new tab’s default sample.

Pinyin and uncertainty

A dotted underline marks an uncertain reading. Hover or focus the syllable to see the alternatives. The confidence guide explains how those readings are selected.

The output also shows bopomofo, Wade-Giles, Yale, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and IPA. These use the same converted syllables. Tone colours come from the site’s CSS. See HTML output to add similar styling to your own application.

Slugs and script conversion

The slug tab has controls for tone numbers, separators and a hash suffix. It shares the pinyin tab’s locale and sandhi settings.

The script tab converts character forms. Colour marks changed characters, an underline marks a choice resolved by pronunciation, and dots mark a choice that remains ambiguous. Hover or focus a marked character to inspect its alternatives. The results also show the reading and evidence used by the converter.

Dictionary tiers

The playground starts with standard, or full if the browser reports it as cached from a previous visit. You can select core, standard or full to compare coverage. Each loaded dictionary is kept in memory for the rest of the visit. A larger dictionary can improve readings of less common words and names.

The buttons show approximate compressed download sizes. This site serves Brotli-compressed dictionary files. Script conversion also loads a separate file of character tables when you first open its tab.

Add ?dictionary=full, ?dictionary=standard or ?dictionary=core to choose a tier in a link. This setting overrides the tier in a shared link and any cached preference. Invalid tier names are ignored. Selecting a tier also updates the address bar.

Sharing a result

Copy link creates a URL containing your text, options, active tab, sample and dictionary tier. Anyone who opens it can reproduce those settings. The state is compressed into the s query parameter.

Browser execution

Conversion runs in your browser. Typing text does not send it to a conversion service. Dictionary files are downloaded from this site, and shared URLs contain the text you choose to share.

The code panel shows the library calls for the active tab. See getting started for the browser setup.

To report an incorrect reading, open an issue with the text, expected reading and dictionary tier. A playground share link can help reproduce it.