Features

Polyphonic Pinyin Annotator is a free in-browser automatic pinyin annotation tool for polyphonic (multi-read) Hanzi, built for primary-school Mandarin teachers, TCFL / CSL (Teaching Chinese as a Foreign / Second Language) educators, children's picture-book editors, audiobook narrators, classical-text proofreaders, and fansub teams. Paste any Chinese text containing polyphonic characters (simplified, traditional, punctuation-heavy, classical Chinese — all supported) in. The tool uses CRF word-segmentation + part-of-speech tagging + a curated 14 000+ entry polyphonic-collocation dictionary (not naive per-character lookup) to output toned pinyin above every character. Polyphonic readings are highlighted in ORANGE (monophonic characters = faint grey) alongside the decision rationale for each polyphonic reading (collocation word, POS, fixed phrase) ; one-click export to HTML, PDF, DOCX, CSV, TXT, solving the real annotation pain point of 'which reading is correct here for teaching / dubbing scripts'.

When You Need This

Common pain points this tool solves

1. A Grade-3 primary-school Mandarin teacher prepares the lesson 'Sima Guang' (450 chars, 12 polyphones: 没 / 盛 / 得 / 都 / 为 / 中 / 乘 / 倒 / 正 / 间 / 了 / 还). Pastes it into Annotator, gets toned pinyin in 1 second, polyphones orange-highlighted + per-case rationale, one-clicks a Word with pinyin to print and hand out. Previously: 40 mins flipping dictionaries + hand-annotating. Now 3 mins
2. A CSL / HSK4 listening teacher drafts a 2000-char final listening script with 87 polyphonic characters. Runs Annotator, orange-highlights every poly + pinyin + POS rationale, exports PDF for student preview. Saves 2 hours manual work, hand-annotation error rate drops 15% → 1.2%
3. An audiobook narrator takes a 300k-character Republican-era novel. Loads of retroflex -er endings, toponyms (堡 bǎo / pù / bǔ), surnames (仇 chóu / qiú), phonetic-loan characters. Before recording she pastes each 3000-char chapter through Annotator, exports pinyin-lined TXT, reads alongside — avoids misreading 仇掌柜 as chóu zhǎng guì instead of the correct qiú zhǎng guì, no re-recording cost overruns (0.3% polyphone error rate).
4. A classical-Chinese enthusiast proofreads a 2000-char excerpt from the Han Shu. Selects 'Ancient pronunciation priority + phonetic-loan (tongjia) priority' mode: 说↔悦 yuè, 见↔现 xiàn, 禽↔擒 qín all auto-detected, pinyin annotated with tongjia relationship in brackets; 10× faster than flipping Ciyuan page by page.

How to Use

Step-by-step instructions

1. Paste source text into main input: pure Chinese, simplified/traditional/mixed, with punctuation, digits, paragraphs, line breaks all supported. 10 000 chars per run recommended; no hard cap, batch 10k chunks for longer.
2. Four labeling toggles: ① Phonetic system choice (modern Hànyǔ Pīnyīn / Ancient readings priority / Taiwanese Zhùyīn fúhào / Cantonese Jyutping / side-by-side double). ② Polyphone display strategy (ONLY highlight polyphones orange / annotate every single char / polyphones + their collocation words listed). ③ POS tagging toggle (verb / noun / adj / measure / adverb). ④ Export format (HTML web page / DOCX / PDF / TXT / CSV with columns Hanzi | Pinyin | POS).
3. 'One-Click Annotate' → results below the source: original text with small pinyin above each character; polyphones are bold ORANGE + bold + bold orange; each polyphone has a rationale below its char (3 categories: 1. idiom / fixed collocation e.g. 盛饭 chéng fàn vs 盛大 shèng dà; 2. POS-based 都 dōu ADV vs dū NOUN capital; 3. ±2 char context window). Every polyphone gets a dropdown next to it for manual override if needed.
4. Export formats: HTML (print-ready textbook-format preserved layout), DOCX (editable, change font size, line spacing, pinyin position/colors), PDF (A4 / B5 typeset), CSV (Quizlet / flashcard use), TXT (audiobook dub script, aligned pinyin per line).

Why Choose Korelyy

What makes us better

1. NOT naive per-char dictionary lookup — that's what every other free tool does, 20%+ error rate on polyphones. We use **CRF segmentation + POS tagging + 14 000 hand-curated polyphonic collocation entries**. Basic ones 银行 (yínháng) vs 行动 (xíngdòng), 长大 (zhǎngdà) vs 长短 (chángduǎn) 100% correct; trickier ones: 盛饭 (chéng) / 盛大 (shèng), surname 仇 (qiú), toponym 堡 (pù shí lǐ pù), all resolved. Overall <2% error rate across 100k char 小学+HSK+古籍 test corpus; outperforms default pypinyin by 13+ pp accuracy.
2. 14 000+ curated polyphonic collocations, coverage break-down: Grades 1–6 primary school ALL课文 polyphones 3 800+, HSK1–6 2 200+, classical tongjia & polyphones 3 500+, retroflex / toponym / surname 4 500+ — not an empty collocation dict.
3. 100% browser-local, zero upload. Primary-school teaching materials, CSL lesson drafts, unpublished novel dub scripts, internal company training docs — paste safely. Segmentation, POS, annotation, pinyin assembly ALL run in local JS. No cloud calls, no privacy leakage.

Monetize With This Tool

Turn this tool into a side income stream

1. Use this tool to speed up your freelance work and take on more paying clients
2. Create polished content faster for your blog, YouTube channel, or social media and grow your audience
3. Offer this tool's capabilities as a service on Fiverr, Upwork, or to your local business clients

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is Polyphonic Pinyin Annotator free to use?

   Yes. Polyphonic Pinyin Annotator is 100% free for core features — no signup, no watermarks, no hidden paywalls on the tools you need day to day.

2. Do I need to sign up to use Polyphonic Pinyin Annotator?

   No. Open and use instantly in your browser. Nothing to install, no account required. Your preferences stay on your device.

3. Is my data safe with Polyphonic Pinyin Annotator?

   Yes. Polyphonic Pinyin Annotator runs locally in your browser whenever technically possible — sensitive inputs are processed on your device, not on our servers. No tracking cookies.

4. Which devices does Polyphonic Pinyin Annotator work on?

   Phones, tablets and desktops with any modern browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox). Touch-friendly and responsive from 320px to 4K.

5. What does "polyphonic pinyin" mean?

   Polyphonic characters are Chinese characters that have multiple pronunciations depending on context. For example, 行 can be pronounced as háng (row/business) or xíng (walk/okay). Our annotator automatically detects the correct pronunciation based on the surrounding words and adds the accurate pinyin annotation.

6. Is this tool useful for Chinese learners?

   Yes, it is designed specifically for Chinese language learners who need accurate pinyin annotations for texts with polyphonic characters. Unlike basic pinyin tools that only show one pronunciation, our tool analyzes context to choose the correct one.

7. Can I paste long texts for annotation?

   Yes, you can paste paragraphs or even full articles. The tool processes the entire text and adds pinyin annotations above each character, making it easy to read and learn.