Pinyin Apps & Charts
This page has 3 sections, here are jump links and a tally of available resources:
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Pinyin Apps
This free app is available for iOS.
This is the only pinyin chart for the iPad to make full use of zooming and panning controls to make pinyin study easy and enjoyable.
The interface is simple, clean, and ad-free. Every pinyin syllable has audio associated, and toggling between the four different tones is easy.
More advanced students of Chinese will enjoy the pinyin chart’s support for alternate phonetic representations of Mandarin Chinese.
The app comes with support for the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for free, but other romanization systems like Wade-Giles, as well as alternate representations like zhuyin (used in Taiwan) are available by in-app purchase.
This free app is available for iOS and Android.
About (Taken From App Store): A free full-featured app to learn the pronunciation system for Chinese.
Features include interactive charts with both male and female pronunciation recordings to help make sure you’re speaking correctly.
Also includes a tutorial on the writing system and how it is used, taking you through all the characters to help you get the basics down.
The iOS app has not been updated in some time, but is still working in March 2020.
Pinyin Charts
This is one of the the best Pinyin chart available online.
It has all syllables with all tones, and also offers transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet, Zhuyin and Wade-Giles.
This is hands down the best Pinyin Chart online and its FREE!
Yang Yang, the site’s owner provides videos within the chart to help you pronounce hard pinyin properly.
When appropriate, she shows you how your mouth should be shaped as the words are formed and where your tongue should be.
Click on “Video-based Pinyin Chart” in top menu to access this chart.
This entry contains an affiliate link, but as you will I am not motivated by that. It truly is the best out there.
Yang Yang was my first teacher, and I love her.
A simple interface allows you to listen to native audio for all syllables.
What I really enjoy is its invitation to “Study Tone Pairs” at the bottom of the page.
Their tone pairs game is great for listening practice.
Pinyin Guides
Here you will find a very useful “guide” to writing pinyin correctly.
Learn the basic rules for writing pinyin, where to place tone marks, information about the history of pinyin and other romanization systems (MPS2, Wade-Giles, Yale) and more.
