Google Translate now displays Pinyin for Mandarin Chinese

November 17, 7:33 PMAsia Headlines ExaminerGlen Loveland

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Pinyin is a system to phonetically render Chinese ideograms in a Latin alphabet.

Image by Li Jun

BEIJING, CHINA – Google’s Translate service now displays the Pinyin results when translating from one language into Chinese characters. Pinyin is the Romanization form of the Chinese language and shows the tone marks.

Users who want to use the feature must choose the “Show Romanization” feature to see the characters converted into Pinyin.

Additionally, the service was upgraded to display real time translation. Users no longer have to click the translate button as the results are shown automatically.

Knowing which tone mark to use is essential for the estimated 100 million people who are currently estimated to be studying Mandarin around the world. Speakers who do not use the right tone cannot be understood or can change the meaning of what they are trying to communicate.

Mandarin, like all Chinese dialects, is a tonal language. Tones, just like consonants and vowels, are used to distinguish words from each other. Many non-native speaker have difficulties mastering the tones of each character, but correct tonal pronunciation is essential for intelligibility because of the vast number of words in the language that only differ by tone. Mandarin has four tones and a fifth “neutral” tone that produces a sound that is not emphasized.

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