The Study Chinese in Taiwan Blog

Casey Alt, an avid member of the Study Chinese in Taiwan community, has created a fantastic new iPhone/iPad app that some of you may find useful in your Chinese-learning endeavours.

The new Bopomofo-Pinyin Converter app lets you convert any word between Chinese's different phonetic systems. For those of you whose Mandarin school is still teaching Bopomofo or those of you with an interest in learning Bopomofo, I'd strongly suggest checking this out.

(Bopomofo, for those of you that don't know, is the phonetic system Taiwanese are taught when they first learn to read Chinese characters. Most Taiwanese use Bopomofo to enter Chinese characters on electronic devices like cell phones and computers.)

Here's the full description for those of you that would like more info on the app:

Bopomofo-Pinyin Converter is a simple, intuitive app for converting between different Chinese phonetics systems. It currently supports Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ), or Zhuyin Fuhao (注音符号), and standard Hanyu Pinyin (拼音). The app intelligently adjusts to display possible characters while you type, based on Chinese phonetics rules, and simultaneously displays both Bopomofo and Pinyin characters in real-time.

Additional features:
    • English and Chinese localization support
    • character sorting by traditional Bopomofo order or Latin alphabetical order
    • adjustable character display settings
    • interactive help tutorial

For details on how to get the app, visit http://tinderbloc.com/bopomofo-pinyin. There's also a short demo video for it at http://tinderbloc.com/demos/bopomofo-pinyin.html .