See the tones you’ve been missing
ToneReader colors every word by its tone while you read Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, or Thai. Tap a word for its meaning, hear it spoken, and keep the ones worth remembering.
No sign-up to try it · the free plan stays free
“We’re going for a walk in the park.” — Mandarin · 普通话
Click any word to look it up — this demo is live
- languages
- 4
- languages
- tones, each with its own color
- 21
- tones, each with its own color
- dictionary words segmented automatically
- 239,000+
- dictionary words segmented automatically
- file formats, from PDF to subtitles
- 10
- file formats, from PDF to subtitles
Built around one habit: reading
Not another deck of drills. ToneReader turns the reading you already want to do into tone practice, vocabulary, and listening, all at once.
Tones you can see
Every word is colored by its tone, with pinyin or jyutping above each character. A few chapters in, red simply means first tone, and you stop guessing.
Definitions on tap
Click any word for a clean, trusted dictionary entry, filtered down to the meaning without the clutter or dead cross-references.
Hear it as you read
Native-like voices pronounce any word or flashcard on demand, so the color, the sound, and the meaning all arrive together.
Reviews that time themselves
Save a word with the sentence you found it in. Spaced repetition brings it back right before you would forget, so you review less and remember more.
Read your own material
Paste anything, or upload a PDF, EPUB, DOCX, or even subtitle files. Sort it into folders and pick up exactly where you stopped.
Comfortable for hours
Light and dark themes, clean pagination for long texts, and an interface that stays out of the way. Nothing blinks, nags, or keeps score against you.
How it works
Paste or upload
A news article, a webnovel chapter, or song lyrics. Anything you actually want to read.
Read in color
Every word gets its tone color and reading. Tap for definitions and audio as you go.
Keep what you learn
Save words to flashcards and let spaced repetition handle the remembering.
Four tone systems, one reader
Learn Mandarin tones through pinyin, Cantonese through jyutping, Vietnamese through its diacritics, and Thai through its tone rules. Same colors, same reader.
Mandarin 普通话
Four tones plus neutral, pinyin above every character, tone-change rules applied for you, and definitions across 84,000+ words.
Cantonese 廣東話
All six tones with jyutping readings, built on 70,000+ traditional-character words.
Vietnamese Tiếng Việt
All six tones read straight from the diacritics, with 61,000+ words grouped so compounds like công viên stay together.
Thai ภาษาไทย
Five tones worked out from the writing itself and applied for you, across a 23,000-word dictionary.
Why it works
Reading is the engine of acquisition
Comprehensible, meaning-focused input is one of the strongest drivers of long-term language acquisition. Krashen (1989) demonstrated that readers gain vocabulary incidentally, without explicit drilling, simply through sustained exposure to text they understand. Elley (1991) reinforced this in a large cross-national study: learners in book-based reading programs consistently outpaced peers receiving traditional grammar-first instruction, gaining vocabulary and general proficiency faster and retaining it longer. The implication is straightforward: the more meaningful text you read, the more language you absorb.
Color makes tones learnable
Tones are the most persistent obstacle for learners of Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Thai, yet they are invisible in standard text. A 2017 randomized study by Godfroid, Lin & Ryu (Language Learning, 67(4)) showed that multimodal visual cuing, presenting each tone with a consistent color, significantly improved tone perception in novice learners compared to audio-only training. Seeing the same color reliably paired with the same tone, across thousands of words in real reading contexts, builds implicit associations that rote drilling struggles to replicate.
ToneReader combines both insights: every character is colored by tone as you read real text, so acquisition and tone awareness develop together, not in separate study sessions.
References
Krashen, S. D. (1989). We acquire vocabulary and spelling by reading: Additional evidence for the input hypothesis. The Modern Language Journal, 73(4), 440–464.
Elley, W. B. (1991). Acquiring literacy in a second language: The effect of book-based programs. Language Learning, 41(3), 375–411.
Godfroid, A., Lin, C.-H., & Ryu, C. (2017). Hearing and seeing tone through color: An efficacy study of web-based, multimodal Chinese tone perception training. Language Learning, 67(4), 819–857.
Simple pricing
Free to start. Pro is $6 a month when you want audio and no limits.
Free
Everything you need to start reading.
- ✓Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese & Thai
- ✓Tone color-coding + readings
- ✓Click-to-define (Wiktionary + CC-CEDICT)
- ✓Up to 20,000 characters per text
- ✓Save up to 10 documents
- ✓Up to 50 flashcards
Pro
For serious learners.
- ✓Everything in Free
- ✓Unlimited text length
- ✓Unlimited saved documents
- ✓Unlimited flashcards
- ✓Folder organization for your library
- ✓Native-like audio pronunciation
- ✓Spaced-repetition review, fully unlocked
Common questions
Do I need an account to try it?↓
No. Open the reader, paste some text, and start reading. A free account adds saved documents, flashcards, and progress stats.
Which languages does ToneReader support?↓
Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Thai. Each one is segmented and colored by tone using language-specific dictionaries and word lists.
What does the free plan include?↓
Texts up to 20,000 characters, 10 saved documents, and 50 flashcards. It does not expire, and no card is required to start.
What file types can I upload?↓
PDF, EPUB, DOCX, RTF, plain text, Markdown, CSV, SRT/VTT subtitles, HTML, and XML.
Does color-coding actually help with tones?↓
Peer-reviewed research says yes. A 2017 randomized study by Godfroid, Lin & Ryu (Language Learning, 67(4)) found that pairing each tone with a consistent color measurably improved tone perception in beginners compared to audio-only training.
More in the full FAQ.
Tonight’s reading could be doing double duty
Paste something you already want to read and let the tones sink in while you do.
Open the readerFree · nothing to install