Annotation Tools
Why Annotate? Annotating Chinese creates 3 lines of text, English, Pinyin and Chinese (see picture below). Some annotation tools allow other phonetic systems in place of pinyin, such as Zhuyin (bopomofo), Wade-Giles, etc.
The fact that the English words are placed in the same order as the Chinese characters allows you to quickly recognize the differences between Chinese and English sentence structures. Also helpful are the spaces placed between words that English people are accustomed to.
Help Improve This Page: Use a resource not listed? Broken Link? Tell Us.
Total Resources: 4
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3Lines.org Free App
3line.org allows you to import ePub files (Simplified or Traditional) or copy and paste Chinese into the app. It then converts the content to pinyin and your choice of English or Spanish. You can save the output to to PDF. Want to translate an entire web page to "3 lines?" You can. Just copy and paste a URL to the app. Available Platforms: iOS and Android
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Chinese Tools Free Web-Based
This tool only allows Simplified characters. It annotates everything into one line, rather than the familiar 3. I am not a fan. But, hey we all have different personalities, so you may like it. I feel the other tools on this list are superior.
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Mandarin Spot Free Web-Based
This tool allows you to choose a phonetic system from Pinyin, Zhuyin, Wade-Giles, Tongyong Pinyin and Palladius. You can choose to include or omit spaces between words. Its "add vocabulary" feature allows all possible definitions of the characters to be included in the annotation. You can chose a "printer friendly" version of your annotation, and even annotate entire web pages.
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Standard Mandarin Free Web-Based
This tool accepts both Simplified and Traditional characters. You can choose to omit English, and create a 2 line annotation if you desire.