# Chinese Text to Speech

> Kenerate AI's Chinese text to speech reads simplified or traditional Chinese in Mandarin, Cantonese and regional dialects, for videos, lessons and narration. MiniMax has 33 Mandarin and 9 Cantonese voices, Kling adds dialect voices and a Taiwanese accent, and Qwen3 and ElevenLabs also speak Chinese. Scripts run up to 10,000 characters per clip.

URL: https://kenerateai.com/chinese-text-to-speech
Publisher: Kenerate AI (https://kenerateai.com)
Last updated: 29 September 2026

## Key facts
- Mandarin voices: 33 on MiniMax + Qwen3 + Kling
- Cantonese voices: 9 on MiniMax
- Dialect voices: Northeastern, Sichuan, Chongqing, Chaoshan, Tianjin, Taiwanese (Kling)
- Scripts: Simplified and traditional characters
- Free start: Starter credits, no watermark
- Demo "News Anchor" (Chinese, MiniMax Speech 2.8 HD): script: 各位观众，晚上好。今天全国大部分地区天气晴朗，北方地区气温明显回升。 (Good evening, everyone. Today most of the country is sunny, and temperatures in the north are rising noticeably.)
- Demo "Radio Host" (Chinese, MiniMax Speech 2.8 HD): script: 夜深了，城市慢慢安静下来。接下来这首歌，送给还在加班的你。 (It's late, and the city is growing quiet. This next song is for you, still working overtime.)
- Demo "Warm Girl" (Chinese, MiniMax Speech 2.8 HD): script: 大家好！今天教大家做一道十分钟就能完成的番茄炒蛋。 (Hi everyone! Today I'll teach you a tomato-and-egg stir-fry you can make in ten minutes.)
- Demo "Cantonese Narrator" (Cantonese, MiniMax Speech 2.8 HD): script: 喺香港嘅老街入面，有一間開咗五十年嘅茶餐廳。 (On an old street in Hong Kong there's a cha chaan teng that has been open for fifty years.)
- Demo "Northeast Buddy" (Chinese, Kling V1 TTS): script: 哎呀妈呀，老铁，今儿这天儿可真冷，赶紧进屋喝口热乎的！ (Oh my, buddy, it's freezing today — hurry inside and have something hot!)
- Demo "Uncle Fu" (Chinese, Qwen3 TTS): script: 年轻人，别着急。泡一壶好茶，慢慢聊，事情总会有办法的。 (Young man, don't rush. Brew a pot of good tea, take your time — there's always a way.)

## Steps
1. Paste your Chinese text — Up to 10,000 characters per clip on MiniMax and ElevenLabs Multilingual v2 (5,000 on Eleven v3 and Qwen3).
2. Pick a Chinese voice — Filter by Chinese or Cantonese for MiniMax's native voices, pick a Kling dialect voice, or use a Qwen3 voice such as Uncle Fu or Dylan.
3. Set the delivery — Emotion, speed and pitch on MiniMax; stability and audio tags on ElevenLabs; a style prompt on Qwen3.
4. Generate and download — MP3 (or WAV/FLAC on MiniMax), no watermark, saved to your history.

## In depth

### Chinese is a family of languages
“Chinese” covers several mutually unintelligible varieties — Mandarin, Cantonese (Yue), Wu, Min and more [1]. Standard Mandarin is the official spoken standard [2], while Cantonese is the everyday language of Hong Kong and Guangdong [3]. A text-to-speech voice is built for one of them, so match the voice to the variety.

### Why tones make Chinese TTS hard
Mandarin has four tones plus a neutral tone, and Cantonese has six; the same syllable with a different tone is a different word [4]. Tones also change next to each other (tone sandhi), and many characters have more than one reading. Neural voices learn these patterns from context, which is why natural phrasing and correct punctuation matter.

### Which Chinese voice for which job
A quick map:
- News & announcements — MiniMax News Anchor, Male Announcer, Radio Host.
- Video & lifestyle — Warm Girl, Warm Bestie, Kling Kaiya.
- Stories & documentary — Qwen3 Uncle Fu, Kling Film Narrator.
- Characterful regional lines — Kling dialect voices.
- Hong Kong audiences — MiniMax Cantonese voices.

References:
[1] Wikipedia — Varieties of Chinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese
[2] Wikipedia — Standard Chinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese
[3] Wikipedia — Cantonese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese
[4] Wikipedia — Tone (linguistics): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)

## FAQ
Q: Can it do Cantonese text to speech?
A: Yes. MiniMax has 9 native Cantonese voices, including a narrator, two professional hosts and a professor. Write the text in Cantonese and pick a Cantonese voice.

Q: Mandarin or Cantonese — which should I pick?
A: Mandarin (普通话) is the standard spoken language of mainland China and Taiwan; Cantonese (粵語) is spoken in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong. Pick the one your audience speaks.

Q: Are there regional dialect voices?
A: Yes — Kling has Northeastern, Sichuan, Chongqing, Chaoshan and Tianjin dialect voices and a Taiwanese-accent voice, for short lines.

Q: Does it read traditional characters?
A: Yes, both simplified and traditional characters are read correctly.

Q: How do I fix a character that's read wrong?
A: Rephrase with a synonym, or on MiniMax Speech 2.8 add a pronunciation dictionary entry for that word.

Q: Is Chinese text to speech free?
A: A free Kenerate account starts with free credits for any engine and voice, with no watermark.

Q: 怎么把文字转成语音？
A: 把简体或繁体中文文本粘贴到 Kenerate 的 Voice Studio，选择普通话、粤语或方言音色，点击生成，然后下载音频即可。MiniMax 有 33 个普通话音色和 9 个粤语音色，Kling 还提供东北话、四川话等方言音色，适合短句。MiniMax 每段最多 10,000 个字符，可下载 MP3、WAV 或 FLAC。免费账户自带免费额度，音频没有水印。

## Related pages
- Text to Speech: https://kenerateai.com/text-to-speech
- AI Voice Clone: https://kenerateai.com/ai-voice-clone-free
- Accent Generator: https://kenerateai.com/accent-generator
- AI Voice Generator: https://kenerateai.com/ai-voice-generator

## Sources
- Kenerate Voice Studio (engines, voices and limits from the app's code): https://kenerateai.com/app/voice
- MiniMax Speech 2.8 HD on WaveSpeed: https://wavespeed.ai/models/minimax/speech-2.8-hd
- ElevenLabs Eleven v3 on WaveSpeed: https://wavespeed.ai/models/elevenlabs/eleven-v3
- ElevenLabs — text to speech documentation: https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/capabilities/text-to-speech
- Wikipedia — Varieties of Chinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varieties_of_Chinese
- Wikipedia — Standard Chinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Chinese
- Wikipedia — Cantonese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantonese
- Wikipedia — Tone (linguistics): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)