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TONEWICK · CHINESE, ILLUMINATED

Your guide to reading with ToneWick

Open the Chinese reader and start with a sample story, or use Import for your own text. The reader works with simplified and traditional Chinese.

Find your controls

Playback, voice speed, script, pronunciation and the four size controls are together above your text. Hide settings folds away the side panel so your article uses the full reading width, including the space beneath the panel. Show settings brings it back. Your choice is remembered in this browser. On a phone, settings start folded and open above the article. Tone, voice, reading aids and appearance stay together on the page. The same settings button remains reachable beside Pause and Stop during narration; opening settings pauses automatic following, so the page stays where you put it.

Adjust tone size

  1. In the toolbar, choose Pronunciation → Pinyin + tones, Zhuyin, or Tones only.
  2. For separate shapes above pinyin or zhuyin, choose a Tone appearance option with drawn tones in Reading settings.
  3. Use the toolbar’s single Tone size − / + control to resize drawn tones from 16 to 80 pixels.

Pinyin size (or Zhuyin size) changes the phonetic text independently, from 12 to 72 pixels. Tones only displays the large drawn contours. With drawn tones enabled, pinyin and zhuyin have no second set of tone marks. Small pronunciation marks remain an alternative appearance. Characters have their own 24–128 pixel setting. Website size changes supporting text from 100–180%; the toolbar remains stable while you adjust sizes. During playback, the same Pause/Resume, Stop and speed controls stay at the top edge. Scrolling manually switches off Follow text; check it beside playback to resume automatic following.

Use Pronunciation → Characters only to hide pronunciation, or press P to hide and restore your previous mode. Hidden layers disable their size controls. Tone appearance → No tone cues removes tone marks, shapes, colours and motion together. Level underlines remain independent.

Listen to slower Mandarin

  1. For a starter story, stop any current playback.
  2. Set the toolbar’s Voice speed to 0.80×, then select Listen. Use the slider or its arrow keys for precise steps.
  3. This selects a separately generated, gently spoken recording. It plays without stretching the normal-speed recording.

The Voice speed slider ranges from 0.5× to 1.5×. During a recording, adjustments preserve pitch and the character guide follows the same audio clock. The current performance stays loaded while playing or paused; a new stopped Play can select the other starter pace. Device voices apply a speed change at the next phrase, and their quality depends on your device.

For your own text, Reading settings → Voice → Prepare natural narration → Speaking pace offers Gentle, Natural and Brisk. New generation requires a separate access key and your consent to send the reviewed page text to ToneWick’s voice service. Starter recordings need neither.

Taiwan vocabulary levels

Choose Word-level underlines → Taiwan · TBCL in Reading settings. New readers start with NAER’s April 2025 TBCL word list. Its original starred sublevels are preserved. Thin, rounded underlines show the level color; tap a word for its exact label. HSK 2.0 and HSK 3.0 remain separately available. Saved selections are retained.

Understand tone movement

Tone motion is optional and off by default. Enable Animate the spoken character under Reading settings → Tones. Only a character with individual timing moves, along the same contour as its drawn tone: level, rising, dipping then rising, or falling. The movement stays inside a small area around the character and never reverses back during the spoken interval. A frame follows the current word. All starter characters have individual audio positions; some recovered positions are approximate. An unsupported device voice or unalignable recording keeps a still marker. Pausing or stopping clears movement. Your device’s reduced-motion preference takes priority.

Colours and shapes represent dictionary tones: first tone is level, second rises, third dips, fourth falls, and the neutral tone has a small mark. These are illustrations, not a measured pitch trace. Connected Mandarin can change dictionary tones; the display is not a complete account of tone sandhi.

Read your own text

Use Import to paste Chinese or open a plain text file. For PDFs with selectable text, extract and review the text before reading. Scanned pages need external Chinese OCR. The reader does not reproduce the PDF’s page layout. Text tools → View / copy unchanged source keeps the original accessible after display-script conversion.

Tap or keyboard-focus a word and press Enter to see definitions. Inspect individual characters, correct a particular occurrence’s pronunciation, or save words. Automatic readings can be wrong for names, ambiguous words and regional pronunciations. A displayed correction does not retrain the narration voice.

Save and back up

Save texts in Library. Use Text tools → Export library backup before clearing browser data or changing devices. Restore that file in another browser to transfer your library. Backups exclude attached audio; retain original audio and timing files separately. Read the storage and privacy details.

Keyboard shortcuts

Common questions

Is ToneWick free?

The reader, dictionary, starter stories and their recordings are free to use without an account. Generating new natural narration is a separately controlled feature that requires an access key.

Does it support traditional Chinese and zhuyin?

Yes. You can display traditional or simplified characters and choose zhuyin. Zhuyin is derived from the same machine-assisted pinyin, so it is not an independent source of Taiwan pronunciations.

Why is a character not moving?

It may lack individual audio timing, motion may be off, playback may be paused, or your device may prefer reduced motion. Starter recordings include every Chinese character. Prepared narration uses acoustic alignment, with approximate recovery for short gaps. Device voices vary: without character timing, their words can highlight but individual motion is limited. Narration never waits for an animation.

Does it upload my books?

Ordinary reading does not upload your documents. Optional new voice generation sends only the reviewed page text after consent. A network device voice may use its own provider; ToneWick asks before using it.

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