Please note that all links below have been shortened to improve readability. To get the complete URL, you have to add http://www.gonnalearn.com/chinese/ in front of it or simply right click on the link and select “Copy Link Location” if you are using Mozilla Firefox or “Copy Shortcut” if you are using Internet Explorer.

1. Set your preferred input and output romanization system and then bookmark the URL (see below no. 3 for all options):

converter.html?in=pinyin&out=bopomofo sets Pinyin as input and Bopomofo (tone marks) as output

2. This is even better: Pass the string that you want to convert:

converter.html?i=pinyin_sfn&o=bopomofo&q=hen3hao3 shows ㄏㄣˇㄏㄠˇ right away!

Please note that the variables are now named i for the input system and o for the output system, q is the (urlencoded) text you want to convert. If you only specify q but not i and o , the text will be shown in the converter and then you’ll have to manually select the input and output conversion systems.

The best thing about this is that you can use the Advanced URL Builder Extension for Firefox to highlight some text and then have it converted with two mouse clicks.

After you installed the extension, go to Tools > Extensions, select Advanced URL Builder and click on Options. Specify a name, it will be shown in the context menu, so make it meaningful, then enter the url in the syntax as shown above, ending with &q=. The extension will automatically add the highlighted text and paste it to the end of the URL.

Example for converting Pinyin with tone marks to Bopomofo (my favourite):
Name: Pinyin TM > Bopomofo (or something you’ll understand)
URL: converter.html?i=pinyin&o=bopomofo&q=

Example for converting Tongyong with tone marks to Pinyin:
Name: Tongyong TN > Pinyin TM
URL: converter.html?i=tongyong&o=pinyin&q=

Example for a universal query, it will copy the highlighted text and then let you select the input and output systems manually:
Name: RConverter
URL: converter.html?i=tongyong&o=pinyin&q=

To use the extension in connection with the converter, highlight the text you want to convert, right-click, select “Find using…” and the appropriate conversion (the “name” given above).

3. Input and output romanization system values:

• bopomofo: Bopomofo
• gwoyeu: Gwoyeu Romatzyh
• mps2_sfn: MPSII (numbers)
• mps2: MPSII (tone marks)
• pinyin_sfn: Pinyin (numbers)
• pinyin_htm: Pinyin (numeric HTML entities) probably useless in this context
• pinyin: Pinyin (tone marks)
• top: Tonally ortographic pinyin (TOP)
• tongyong_sfn: Tongyong (numbers)
• tongyong: Tongyong (tone marks)
• wadegiles: Wade-Giles
• yale_sfn: Yale

If you want to leave a comment, please use the comment function of this blog or post on Forumosa.com (where it all started).