Pinyin Tone Mark Converter: Numbers to Tone Marks and Back

Where the tone mark goes

Every syllable with a tone carries exactly one mark, placed by a simple rule:

1. If the syllable has a or e, the mark goes there: hǎo, xiè, yuè.
2. If it has ou, the mark goes on the o: gǒu, zhōu.
3. Otherwise, the mark goes on the last vowel: guì, liù, duō.

This is why gui4 becomes guì and liu4 becomes liù, even though they look like mirror images. The full set of spelling conventions, including y, w and the apostrophe, is explained in pinyin spelling rules.

Tone sandhi hints

Written pinyin always shows a syllable's dictionary tone, but a few tones change in speech. The converter flags three rules:

• 3 + 3: a third tone before another third tone is said as a second tone: nǐ hǎo → ní hǎo. In longer chains the result depends on phrasing; the converter shows the common fast-speech pattern, in which every third tone but the last changes.
• 一 yī: becomes yí before a fourth tone and yì before other tones, except in counting, dates and ordinals.
• 不 bù: becomes bú before a fourth tone.

See tone sandhi for the details and exceptions.

Converting marked pinyin to numbers

Paste pinyin with tone marks and the converter splits it into syllables and adds numbers. It splits a word after the vowels and an optional n, ng or r, unless a vowel follows, so Běijīng becomes Bei3jing1 and dàngāo becomes dan4gao1. Words that are ambiguous without an apostrophe, such as Xīān, should be written with one: Xī'ān. Syllables without a mark get no number (neutral tone).

Practise the tones

Knowing where the marks go is half the job; hearing and producing the tones is the other half. Use the Mandarin tone trainer to practise listening, and the Chinese practice page to record yourself.

Frequently asked questions

How do I type ü?

Type v or u: (colon). lv4 and lu:4 both become lǜ. After j, q, x and y the converter writes plain u, as pinyin spelling rules require: qv4 becomes qù.

How do I write the neutral tone?

Use 5 or 0, or no number at all: ma5, ma0 and ma all give ma. In marked pinyin, a syllable without a mark is treated as neutral.

Does the converter change the written tones for sandhi?

No. Written pinyin keeps the original tones, as the standard requires. The sandhi box shows separately how the phrase is pronounced, so you can see where tones change.

Sources

• State Council of the People's Republic of China (1958). Hanyu Pinyin Fang'an (Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet).
• Standardization Administration of China (2012). GB/T 16159-2012: Basic rules of the Chinese phonetic alphabet orthography.
• Duanmu, S. (2007). The Phonology of Standard Chinese (2nd ed.), chapter 11 on tone sandhi. Oxford University Press.