Software for writing vocabulary list in PinYin

orlando7
July 25, 2008, 04:03 AM posted in General Discussion

Dear all,

after trying all sorts of keyboard drivers on my windows laptop and discussing with IT nerds, Chinese and Laowei firends snd considering psychotherapy instead I still have found no way of displaying the 4 tones in the Pinyin writing.

I am not very fond of writing numbers behind every syllable.

Anybody has any ideas for a software / Keyboard driver?

How do you folks in CHinesepod do it?

 

 

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auntie68
July 25, 2008, 04:19 AM

Thank you SO MUCH for asking this question. I am a Mac User (Leopard, using Safari as my browser), fairly adept at keying in Chinese characters using ITABC, and all kinds of "European" accent marks using "alt" key combinations.

And yet I still haven't figured out how to key in pinyin tone marks. Again, thanks! I'm really looking forward to being "rescued" very soon, by some helpful CPOD user.

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amber
July 25, 2008, 05:38 AM

Hey Orlando,

We use a program called "Wenlin" which is great, and converts it for you.

Or you can try this online tool.

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lostinasia
July 25, 2008, 09:14 AM

(Note for original poster: the below is for a Mac and not Windows. Sorry I can't help you!)

auntie68, have you used U.S. extended? I use that to type pinyin on my Mac (Tiger OS, but I don't think it should matter). It uses "alt" key combinations: to type "mā" (hope that shows up right!), for example, I type "m" + "Alt-a" [for first tone] + "a". Not elegant but it gets the job done. (If I want long strings of pinyin, I'll actually type or cut/ paste the characters and use a pinyin converter.)

If I go into System Preferences / International / Input Menu, I then go way down to U.S. Extended - an American flag with a little "U" underneath it. Select that and then it'll be a choice for your input menus, in the upper right corner (where the flag usually is, beside the time on my system).

I can't recall if I ever had to install that input method, or if it came with the computer. You can see a description with visual aids here.

You can also see more detail about the keystrokes here.

So now my system is usually set to toggle between U.S. extended (for normal use and pinyin) and QIM Sogou Dict (which I bought about a month back - great program, but I'm still confused by a couple of things). Oh, and just in case you didn't know, Command + Space can toggle back and forth between the current and the most recent input menu.

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auntie68
July 25, 2008, 09:27 AM

mā má mǎ mà...

That looks like exactly what I want!!! lostinasia, I love you! Thank you so much for drawing my attention to "US extended"... it's actually quite intuitive, very close to the keystrokes that I use every day for inputting European accents.

Thank you so SOOOOO much!!!!!!!!! ;-)  Merry Xmas everybody, it's Christmas Day, isn't it? Yaaaayy!

P/s: What an idiot I was... I didn't even see the "-extended" option, that's how dumb I am. Thank you!

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boran
July 25, 2008, 02:18 PM

For Windows, here is a Pinyin IME which outputs pinyin with tone marks.  When using it, you type the pinyin with tone numbers and it automatically converts it to pinyin with tone marks (and places the tone mark over the correct vowel). 

I use it for typing comments here usually switching among three IMEs (English, Pinyin, and Chinese Characters).  It helps to know your shortcut keys for switching between different IMEs (ALT+SHIFT and CTLR+SHIFT) so you can quickly type a comment using a mixture of English, Pinyin and Hanzi.

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pinkjeans
July 25, 2008, 03:40 PM

boran, thank you so much for the link. What a great tool to download! It really saves me visiting pinyin converter sites when I'm sure of the tones (often I'm not sure, confusing between 第一声 and 第四声 and I need a pinyin converter after typing the 汉字, but that's my problem).

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pcmi5
August 05, 2008, 08:13 PM

This is a good tool without having to remember which vowel the diacritic goes over:

 

http://toshuo.com/pinyin-tone-tool/

 

 

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orlando7
August 08, 2008, 08:43 AM

Great! Thanks everybody, you made my day.