Free Text-To-Speech and Text-to-MP3 for Chinese Mandarin

Easily convert your Chinese Mandarin text into professional speech for free. Perfect for e-learning, presentations, YouTube videos and increasing the accessibility of your website. Our voices pronounce your texts in their own language using a specific accent. Plus, these texts can be downloaded as MP3. In some languages, multiple speakers are available.

Input limit: 3,000 characters / Don't forget to turn on your speakers :-)

Hint: If you finish a sentence, leave a space after the dot before the next one starts for better pronunciation.

Here are some features to use while generating speech:

Add a break

Mary had a little lamb <break time="1s"/> Whose fleece was white as snow.

Emphasizing words

I already told you I <emphasis level="strong">really like </emphasis> that person.

Speed

For dramatic purposes, you might wish to <prosody rate="slow">slow down the speaking rate of your text.</prosody>
Or if you are in a hurry <prosody rate="fast">your may want to speed it up a bit.</prosody>

Pitch

Do you like sythesized speech <prosody pitch="high">with a pitch that is higher than normal?</prosody>
Or do you prefer your speech <prosody pitch="-20%">with a somewhat lower pitch?</prosody>

Whisper

<amazon:effect name="whispered">If you make any noise, </amazon:effect> she said, <amazon:effect name="whispered">they will hear us.</amazon:effect>

Conversations

It is possible to switch between speakers within the text. Just use the following format:
[speaker:Brian] Hello Emma
[speaker:Emma] Hey Brian
[speaker:Brian] How are you doing?
[speaker:Emma] I am fine. May i invite you to a cup of tea?

Please note: Remove any diacritical signs from the speakers names when using this, Léa = Lea, Penélope = Penelope

Need more effects or customization? Please refer to the Amazon SSML Tags for Amazon Polly

Facts about the Chinese Mandarin language:

Chinese, with its ancient origins and complex writing system, is not just a single language but a group of languages or dialects numbering over a hundred. Mandarin Chinese (普通话), the official language of China and Taiwan, is the most spoken language globally, with over a billion native speakers. However, the Chinese language family also includes other major dialects like Cantonese (粤语), Shanghainese (上海话), and Hokkien (闽南语), each with its own unique phonetic, lexical, and syntactic characteristics.

The roots of Chinese can be traced back more than 3,000 years to the earliest logographic writing, known as oracle bone script, used during the Shang Dynasty for divination purposes. Over the millennia, Chinese characters have evolved through several stages—bronze inscriptions, seal script, clerical script, regular script, and more—mirroring the changes in Chinese society and governance.

A remarkable feature of the Chinese language is its writing system, consisting of thousands of characters, or "hanzi" (汉字). Each character typically represents one syllable and, by extension, a morpheme, which is the smallest semantic unit of meaning in a language. Unlike alphabetic writing systems, Chinese characters do not provide direct cues to pronunciation but rather embody meaning through intricate combinations of strokes and radicals.

The 20th century brought significant change to the Chinese language, most notably with the May Fourth Movement of 1919 which promoted language reform and the creation of "baihua" (白话), a push for written vernacular Chinese over the classical "wenyanwen" (文言文). The midpoint of the century saw the introduction of Hanyu Pinyin, a romanization system designed to standardize pronunciation and facilitate learning. In tandem with these linguistic reforms was the simplification of Chinese characters in mainland China, aimed at improving literacy rates and modern communication.

Despite these modern adaptations, Chinese remains a tonal language, where meaning is distinguished not just by phonemes but by pitch and intonation. With its four main tones and one neutral tone in Mandarin, the language offers a rich tapestry of semantic possibilities. As it continues to spread and influence globally, Chinese carries with it the legacy of one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, a testament to human culture and adaptability.