Answered by Jim from Australia | Mar. 17, 2014 01:41
It is not always entirely accurate, but I use Google translate. If you type in your English word or phrase, [most long sentences are not accurate] You will get the Chinese characters in the opposite side. Below that, is the pinyin. There is also a button you can press, and a female Chinese voice, will speak the pinyin words, so you get the correct pronunciation. A problem does arise if you are in Southern China, as the translation is in either Traditional or Mandarin [Simplified Chinese] which is spoken in the North. But in the South, they find it hard to understand both the characters and the pinyin, as they tend to speak Canton. Also, with so many dialects, it is difficult to even get the right pinyin, as I believe there are 5 versions of it.