---
title: Chinese Compatible
description: A simple tokenizer for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters
canonical: https://www.paradedb.com/docs/reference/tokenizers/available-tokenizers/chinese-compatible
---

The Chinese compatible tokenizer is like the [simple](/reference/tokenizers/available-tokenizers/simple) tokenizer -- it lowercases non-CJK characters and splits on
any non-alphanumeric character. Additionally, it treats each CJK character as its own token.

```sql
CREATE INDEX search_idx ON mock_items
USING paradedb (id, (description::pdb.chinese_compatible))
WITH (key_field='id');
```

To get a feel for this tokenizer, run the following command and replace the text with your own:

```sql
SELECT 'Hello world! 你好!'::pdb.chinese_compatible::text[];
```

```ini Expected Response
        text
---------------------
 {hello,world,你,好}
(1 row)
```

## Convert Between Traditional and Simplified Chinese

Use `chinese_convert` to convert Traditional and Simplified Chinese to the same form
before tokenization, so queries can match documents written in either form.

```sql
CREATE INDEX search_idx ON mock_items
USING paradedb (id, (description::pdb.chinese_compatible('chinese_convert=t2s')))
WITH (key_field='id');
```

The following conversion modes are supported:

| Mode    | Description                                   |
| ------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| `t2s`   | Traditional to Simplified                     |
| `s2t`   | Simplified to Traditional                     |
| `tw2s`  | Traditional Taiwan to Simplified              |
| `tw2sp` | Traditional Taiwan to Simplified, with idioms |
| `s2tw`  | Simplified to Traditional Taiwan              |
| `s2twp` | Simplified to Traditional Taiwan, with idioms |