Mandarin Chinese to English Voice Translator

How it works

You may not read the Chinese yourself. Keep it anyway: it is what a Chinese-speaking colleague can check.

1. 1

   Upload the Mandarin audio

   A file up to 10 minutes and 100 MB. Chinese (Mandarin) is already selected. Sign in with Google, Apple or an email code and press Start Transcription.

2. 2

   Look at names and figures

   The transcript arrives in Chinese characters. Even if you cannot read it, any figures written as digits can be compared with what you heard, and a colleague who reads Chinese can check the names.

3. 3

   Translate to English

   English is preselected. Press Translate and read the result, along with up to three notes on sayings or words that could be read two ways. The Chinese stays underneath for reference.

What Mandarin leaves for the English to guess

English demands details that Mandarin often leaves to context. Those are the places a translation can be confidently wrong.

• Sound-alike syllables

  Mandarin has about 400 different syllables without tones and about 1,300 with them, so many words sound alike. A mumbled tone or a noisy line can put the wrong character in the transcript, and the English follows it. If a sentence seems off, suspect the transcript first.

• He, she and it are all tā

  The written forms differ (他, 她, 它), but the sound is the same, so a recording does not say which was meant. The English has to choose. If it matters who did something, check the rest of the conversation or ask.

• No tense on the verb

  Chinese has no grammatical markers of tense. Time comes from context, from words like tomorrow, and from particles like 了. "Has it shipped" and "will it ship" can hang on a small word, so confirm dates with the person before you rely on the English.

• Measure words and big numbers

  A measure word usually goes with a number, and it may be the only sign of what is being counted: boxes, batches or single pieces. Numbers group by ten-thousands too: 万 is 10,000 and 亿 is 100 million, so 3万 is 30,000. Units are kept and never converted, so 斤 stays 斤.

• Names, and Mandarin only

  Names are meant to stay as they are, but people often spell theirs in English their own way, so compare with a business card or an email signature. The picker says Chinese (Mandarin). Cantonese is not listed, so a Cantonese recording should not be expected to come out right, and the same goes for Shanghainese and Hokkien.

Mandarin recordings people need in English

Often someone is waiting on your answer, and the only record is a voice message.

• A voice message from a factory or a supplier

  Prices, batch sizes and ship dates from a contact in Guangdong. Save it as a file first, then reply in writing with the figures you understood so they can confirm them.

• A recorded factory visit

  What the plant manager said on the floor, recorded with their agreement. Noise is the enemy here, so hold the phone close to the speaker while recording.

• A voicemail from a Mandarin-speaking client

  Enough to understand the request and call back prepared. Ask someone who speaks Mandarin to check before you act on anything involving money.

• A lecture or an online class

  Split a long class into parts of 10 minutes or less. You will get Chinese text to learn from and English to follow along with.

• A grandparent's voice note, or an interview

  A family message you only half understand, or an interview for a story, recorded with consent. For anything quoted in print, have a Mandarin speaker check the English against the audio.