I have a habit of adding pinyin to Chinese lessons that lack it.
I do this by pasting the text (Chinese Characters) into Google Translate, then copying the pinyin which it generates and adding it to the lesson. While I know that Google’s translations are often wanting, I am not aware that the pinyin is not good.
If this is not desirable, I will stop doing the modifications to the lessons. Please let me know if there are any issues with what I am doing.
@jfeka - You’re more than welcome to do this. Just make sure you’re adding it as a lesson resource (Resources > Script Conversions > Pinyin). I’m sure some learners will appreciate it, and those who don’t want to see the Pinyin don’t have to click it.
For characters that have multiple pinyin, google translate will sometimes get the correct (context) pinyin wrong. iirc it would get 当 wrong, a lot, as an example. But it should be good enough for the majority of time.
Normally, if I want to read text, but with the option to regularly check pinyin, I just put text into pleco reader. If I’m at a laptop, I use mdbg.
Thanks iaing, I have tried the Pleco OCR. I photographed a couple of paragraphs and found the Pinyin and translation of individual words. Is this the way to work with paper books?
Can I get Pleco to read out the material I input?
What types of files do I need to input a whole book into Pleco?
Pleco reader will open most text files. Sometimes you may have to just choose a different encoding option when opening.
Typically I just pdf text and save it for reading when offline. If I don’t know a word I touch on it and it will tell me pinyin and definition (in Chinese or English). If the text is dense, I just tap forward a lot reading the pinyin and definitions quickly.
I don’t use pleco for paper books. These days, you can find most Chinese content electronically.
Thanks iaing. Your link led me to: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3349
This addon will work on any webpage, including with lessons on LingQ. It finds words even when you have turned a whole sentence into a LingQ. Pinyin and a list of possible English meanings comes up for any word.