<blockquote>
  <p>I'm wondering if there is any way to write Chinese characters using the Latin alphabet (a-zA-Z) with/without accents of any sort, and then convert it into Chinese characters. Even if it is considered a bad idea for a new learner, I would still like to know if it is possible in any way.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Every Chinese character is associated with <a href="https://www.key-shortcut.com/en/writing-systems/%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97-chinese-cjk/cjk-characters-1/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Unicode identification numbers.</a> Not sure if this is what you are looking for. Nothing phonetic is available of this sort.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>But in speech, you don't have access to writing, so this either means you need to learn how to read Chinese in order to understand these words in speech, or you can understand them in speech without learning to read Chinese, because of context of some sort. If humans are able to tell how the sound of words translates into meaning, then I would wonder how we do that, because that would also answer the question.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>These sorts of words are distinguished in the same way that we do in English for two/too/to. A kindergartner can use these three words just fine and distinguish them all without knowing they have different spellings.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-22T22:59:06.187Z
2018-09-22T22:59:06.187Z
Trevor Kafka
<p>The closest thing to what you are describing is found in predictive input pinyin keyboards.  Sometimes if I hear something I'm unfamiliar with I'll try typing it into my computer or phone keyboard to see what the predictive text suggests.</p>

<p>There is no perfect mechanical way, though.  There are multiple levels of problems:</p>

<ul>
<li>Word boundaries in Chinese sentences are ambiguous.  Separating Chinese sentences into words correctly is the subject of research and contests (!).  And the existing work is starting from characters, not phonetics.</li>
<li>Not only are there multiple characters for every sound, there are multiple words with the same sequence of sounds, or multiple <em>sequences of words</em> for a given sequence of sounds.</li>
<li>Your final assumption (that humans can always tell which words were intended) is not even true.</li>
</ul>

<p>(I'm assuming you aren't interested in things like typing in the unicode codepoints, or using a system like Cangjie where the person typing knows the character already and inputs a sequence of letters to specify the stroke components)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-24T00:19:55.457Z
2018-09-24T00:19:55.457Z
Ben Jackson
<p>From what it <a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13785/pinyin-to-chinese-characters">sounds like</a> (also <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-online-tool-or-website-for-translating-pinyin-without-tone-marks-to-Chinese-characters" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>):</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Chinese characters cannot be faithfully constructed backwards from a tone+syllable combination -- the mapping only goes one way (and even then, sometimes characters have multiple pronunciations).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>There is no way to automatically convert pinyin into Chinese characters, especially if you don't have the tones. You can look them up individually on nciku, but you'll have no way of knowing which of the dozens of characters with the same pronunciation are the right ones. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>I'm wondering if there is any way to write Chinese characters using the Latin alphabet (a-zA-Z) with/without accents of any sort, and then convert it into Chinese characters. Even if it is considered a bad idea for a new learner, I would still like to know if it is possible in any way.</p>

<p>If find it interesting when they say:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>As you amass a vocabulary, you will start to notice patterns that will give you an intuition for which character is meant by the English pinyin, with or without tone markings.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And even:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>In fact, even words like 终止 and 中止 sound identical with tones, so you only distinguish them in writing.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>But in <em>speech</em>, you don't have access to writing, so this either means you need to learn how to <em>read</em> Chinese in order to understand these words in speech, or you can understand them in speech <em>without</em> learning to read Chinese, because of context of some sort.</p>

<p>If humans are able to tell how the sound of words translates into meaning, then I would wonder how we do that, because that would also answer the question.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-23T00:56:12.433Z
Consider post it on https://linguistics.stackexchange.com not here
炸鱼薯条德里克
<translation><pinyin><romanization>
If Pinyin (or Other Romanization) can be Translated Back into Chinese Characters
# If Pinyin (or Other Romanization) can be Translated Back into Chinese Characters

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-09-22)

From what it [sounds like](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/13785/pinyin-to-chinese-characters) (also [here](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-online-tool-or-website-for-translating-pinyin-without-tone-marks-to-Chinese-characters)):

> Chinese characters cannot be faithfully constructed backwards from a tone+syllable combination -- the mapping only goes one way (and even then, sometimes characters have multiple pronunciations).

And

> There is no way to automatically convert pinyin into Chinese characters, especially if you don't have the tones. You can look them up individually on nciku, but you'll have no way of knowing which of the dozens of characters with the same pronunciation are the right ones.

I'm wondering if there is any way to write Chinese characters using the Latin alphabet (a-zA-Z) with/without accents of any sort, and then convert it into Chinese characters. Even if it is considered a bad idea for a new learner, I would still like to know if it is possible in any way.

If find it interesting when they say:

> As you amass a vocabulary, you will start to notice patterns that will give you an intuition for which character is meant by the English pinyin, with or without tone markings.

And even:

> In fact, even words like 终止 and 中止 sound identical with tones, so you only distinguish them in writing.

But in *speech*, you don't have access to writing, so this either means you need to learn how to *read* Chinese in order to understand these words in speech, or you can understand them in speech *without* learning to read Chinese, because of context of some sort.

If humans are able to tell how the sound of words translates into meaning, then I would wonder how we do that, because that would also answer the question.

**Tags:** translation, pinyin, romanization

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Consider post it on https://linguistics.stackexchange.com not here  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2018-09-22. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

> I'm wondering if there is any way to write Chinese characters using the Latin alphabet (a-zA-Z) with/without accents of any sort, and then convert it into Chinese characters. Even if it is considered a bad idea for a new learner, I would still like to know if it is possible in any way.

Every Chinese character is associated with [Unicode identification numbers.](https://www.key-shortcut.com/en/writing-systems/%E6%96%87%E5%AD%97-chinese-cjk/cjk-characters-1/) Not sure if this is what you are looking for. Nothing phonetic is available of this sort.

> But in speech, you don't have access to writing, so this either means you need to learn how to read Chinese in order to understand these words in speech, or you can understand them in speech without learning to read Chinese, because of context of some sort. If humans are able to tell how the sound of words translates into meaning, then I would wonder how we do that, because that would also answer the question.

These sorts of words are distinguished in the same way that we do in English for two/too/to. A kindergartner can use these three words just fine and distinguish them all without knowing they have different spellings.


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2018-09-24. Score: 1

The closest thing to what you are describing is found in predictive input pinyin keyboards. Sometimes if I hear something I'm unfamiliar with I'll try typing it into my computer or phone keyboard to see what the predictive text suggests.

There is no perfect mechanical way, though. There are multiple levels of problems:

* Word boundaries in Chinese sentences are ambiguous. Separating Chinese sentences into words correctly is the subject of research and contests (!). And the existing work is starting from characters, not phonetics.
* Not only are there multiple characters for every sound, there are multiple words with the same sequence of sounds, or multiple *sequences of words* for a given sequence of sounds.
* Your final assumption (that humans can always tell which words were intended) is not even true.

(I'm assuming you aren't interested in things like typing in the unicode codepoints, or using a system like Cangjie where the person typing knows the character already and inputs a sequence of letters to specify the stroke components)


---

