Dictionary of Meaning

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PinYin

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{{otheruses}} {{RCL}} '''Hanyu Pinyin''' ({{zh-stp|t=漢語拼音|s=汉语拼音|p=Hànyǔ Pīnyīn}}, lit. "Chinese language phonetic notation"), often shortened to '''pinyin''' ({{zh-cp.html">romanization (phonemic notation and Transcription_(linguistics) transcription.html" title="Meaning of p=pīnyīn}},_lit. "phonetic notation" or "phonetic symbols" while '''pin''' means "spell(ing)" and '''yin''' means "sound(s)"), is a system of transcription">transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin. Hanyu Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the government in the People's Republic of China. It superseded older romanization systems such as Wade-Giles (1859; modified 1912) and Postal System Pinyin, and replaced zhuyin as the method of Chinese phonetic instruction in mainland China. Since then, Hanyu Pinyin has been accepted by the Government of Singapore, the Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and most international institutions as the preferred transcription system for Mandarin. In 1979 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese (ISO-7098:1991). Pinyin is a romanization and not an anglicization; that is, it uses Roman letters to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin. The way these letters represent sounds in Standard Mandarin will differ from how other languages that use the Roman alphabet represent sound. For example, the sounds indicated in pinyin by ''b'' and ''p'' are distinguished from each other (by aspiration) in a manner different from that of both English (which has voicing and aspiration) and of French (which has voicing alone). Other letters, like ''j'', ''q'', ''x'' or ''zh'' indicate sounds that do not correspond to any exact sound in English. Some of the transcriptions in pinyin such as the ''ang'' ending, do not correspond to English pronunciations, either. Pinyin has also become a useful tool for Chinese input methods for computers entering Chinese language text into computers.

Pronunciation
{{IPA notice}} The primary purpose of pinyin in Chinese schools is to teach Standard Mandarin pronunciation. Many in the West are under the mistaken belief that pinyin is used to help children associate characters with spoken words which they already know, but this is incorrect as many Chinese do not use Standard Mandarin at home, and therefore do not know the Standard Mandarin pronunciation of words until they learn them in elementary school through the use of pinyin. Pinyin uses the Roman alphabet, hence the pronunciation is relatively straightforward for Westerners. Pinyin vowels are pronounced similarly to vowels in Romance languages, and most consonants are similar to English language English. A pitfall for English-speaking novices is, however, the unusual pronunciation of ''x'', ''q'', ''c'', ''zh'', and ''z'' (and sometimes ''i'') and the unvoiced pronunciation of ''d'', ''b'', ''g'', ''j''. More information on the pronunciation of all pinyin letters in terms of English approximations is given further below. The pronunciation of Chinese is generally given in terms of initial (linguistics) initials and final (linguistics) finals, which represent the ''segmental phonemic'' portion of the language. Initials are initial consonants, while finals are all possible combinations of medial (linguistics) medials (semivowels coming before the vowel), the syllable nucleus nucleus vowel, and syllable coda coda (final vowel or consonant). For a complete table of all Pinyin syllables, see Pinyin table.

Initials
In each cell below, the first line indicates International Phonetic Alphabet IPA, the second indicates pinyin. {|class="wikitable" | !colspan="2"|Bilabial consonant Bilabial !colspan="1"|Labiodental consonant Labio-
dental !colspan="2"|Alveolar consonant Alveolar !colspan="2"|Retroflex consonant Retroflex !colspan="2"|Alveolo-palatal consonant Alveolo-
palatal !colspan="2"|Velar consonant Velar |- !style="text-align: left;"|Plosive consonant Plosive |style="background: #ccf;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[p]}}
b |style="background: #ccf;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[pÊ°]}}
p | |style="background: #cfc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[t]}}
d |style="background: #cfc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[tÊ°]}}
t |colspan="2"| |colspan="2"| |style="background: #fcc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[k]}}
g |style="background: #fcc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[kÊ°]}}
k |- !style="text-align: left;"|Nasal consonant Nasal |style="background: #ccf;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[m]}}
m | | |style="background: #cfc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[n]}}
n | |colspan="2"| |colspan="2"| | | |- !style="text-align: left;"|Fricative consonant Fricative |colspan="2"| |style="background: #ccf;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[f]}}
f |style="background: #ffc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[s]}}
s | |style="background: #cff;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[Ê‚]}}
sh |style="background: #cff;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[Ê?]}} ^*
r |style="background: #fcf;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[É•]}}
x | |style="background: #fcc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[x]}}
h | |- !style="text-align: left;"|Affricate consonant Affricate |colspan="2"| | |style="background: #ffc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[ts]}}
z |style="background: #ffc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[tsÊ°]}}
c |style="background: #cff;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[tʂ]}}
zh |style="background: #cff;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[tʂʰ]}}
ch |style="background: #fcf;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[tɕ]}}
j |style="background: #fcf;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[tɕʰ]}}
q |colspan="2"| |- !style="text-align: left;"|Lateral approximant consonant Lateral approximant |colspan="2"| | |style="background: #cfc;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[l]}}
l | |colspan="2"| |colspan="2"| |colspan="2"| |- !style="text-align: left;"|Approximant consonant Approximant |colspan="2"| | |colspan="2"| |style="background: #cff;text-align: center;"|{{IPA|[É»]}} ^*
r | |colspan="2"| |colspan="2"| |} ^* {{IPA|[Ê?]}} and {{IPA|[É»]}} are interchangeable.
{|cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" |Conventional order is: |style="background: #ccf;"|b p m f |style="background: #cfc;"|d t n l |style="background: #fcc;"|g k h |style="background: #fcf;"|j q x |style="background: #cff;"|zh ch sh r |style="background: #ffc;"|z c s |}

Finals
In each cell below, the first line indicates IPA, the second indicates pinyin for a standalone (no-initial) form, and the third indicates pinyin for a combination with an initial. Other than finals modified by an -r, which are omitted, the following is an exhaustive table of all possible finals. ¹ It is of interest to point out that the only syllable-final consonants in standard Mandarin are -n and -ng, and -r which is attached as a grammatical suffix. If you see a Chinese syllable ending with any other consonant, it is either from a non-Mandarin Chinese language (usually southern Chinese languages such as Cantonese), or more rarely, a non-Pinyin Romanization system (where final consonants are used to indicate tones) is being used. {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center" !rowspan=2 |Nucleus||rowspan=2|Coda||colspan=4|Medial |- ! Ø ||{{IPA|i}}||{{IPA|u}}||{{IPA|y}} |- |rowspan=5 style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|a}}||style="background:#efefef"|Ø||{{IPA|[É‘]}}
a
-a||{{IPA|[iɑ]}}
ya
-ia||{{IPA|[uɑ]}}
wa
-ua|| |- |style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|i}}||{{IPA|[aɪ]}}
ai
-ai|| ||{{IPA|[uaɪ]}}
wai
-uai|| |- |style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|u}}||{{IPA|[aÊŠ]}}
ao
-ao||{{IPA|[iaÊŠ]}}
yao
-iao|| || |- |style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|n}}||{{IPA|[an]}}
an
-an||{{IPA|[iɛn]}}
yan
-ian||{{IPA|[uan]}}
wan
-uan||{{IPA|[yɛn]}}
yuan
-üan ² |- |style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|ng}}||{{IPA|[É‘Å‹]}}
ang
-ang||{{IPA|[iɑŋ]}}
yang
-iang||{{IPA|[uɑŋ]}}
wang
-uang|| |- |rowspan=5 style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|ə}}||style="background:#efefef"|Ø||{{IPA|[ɤ]}}
e
-e||{{IPA|[iÉ›]}}
ye
-ie||{{IPA|[uÉ”]}}
wo
-uo/-o ³||{{IPA|[yÉ›]}}
yue
-üe ² |- |style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|i}}||{{IPA|[eɪ]}}
ei
-ei|| ||{{IPA|[ueɪ]}}
wei
-ui|| |- |style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|u}}||{{IPA|[ɤʊ]}}
ou
-ou||{{IPA|[iɤʊ]}}
you
-iu|| || |- |style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|n}}||{{IPA|[ən]}}
en
-en||{{IPA|[in]}}
yin
-in||{{IPA|[uən]}}
wen
-un||{{IPA|[yn]}}
yun
-ün ² |- |style="background:#efefef"|{{IPA|ng}}||{{IPA|[ɤŋ]}}
eng
-eng||{{IPA|[iɤŋ]}}
ying
-ing||{{IPA|[uɤŋ]}} ⁴
weng
-ong||{{IPA|[yÊŠÅ‹]}}
yong
-iong |- |colspan=2 style="background:#efefef"|Ø||{{IPA|[z̩]}}

-i||{{IPA|[i]}}
yi
-i||{{IPA|[u]}}
wu
-u||{{IPA|[y]}}
yu
-ü ² |} ¹ /É™r/ (而, 二, etc.) is written as ''er''. For other finals formed by the suffix -r, pinyin does not use special orthography; one simply appends -r to the final that it is added to, without regard for any sound changes that may take place along the way. For information on sound changes related to final -r, please see Standard Mandarin.
² "ü" is written as "u" after j, q, or x.
³ "uo" is written as "o" after b, p, m, or f.
⁴ It is pronounced {{IPA|[ÊŠÅ‹]}} when it follows an initial, and pinyin reflects this difference.
In addition, ''ê'' {{IPA|[ɛ]}} is used to represent certain interjections.

Rules given in terms of English pronunciation
All rules given here in terms of English pronunciation are approximate.

Pronunciation of initials
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%" !'''Pinyin'''||'''International Phonetic Alphabet IPA'''||'''Explanation''' |- ||''b''|| {{IPA|[p]}}|| unaspirated '''p''', as in s'''p'''it |- ||''p''|| {{IPA|[pÊ°]}}|| as in English |- ||''m''|| {{IPA|[m]}}|| as in English |- ||''f''|| {{IPA|[f]}}|| as in English |- ||''d''|| {{IPA|[t]}}|| unaspirated '''t''', as in s'''t'''and |- ||''t''|| {{IPA|[tÊ°]}}|| as in English |- ||''n''|| {{IPA|[n]}}|| as in English |- ||''l''|| {{IPA|[l]}}|| as in English |- ||''g''|| {{IPA|[k]}}|| unaspirated '''k''', as in s'''k'''ill |- ||''k''|| {{IPA|[kÊ°]}}|| as in English |- ||''h''|| {{IPA|[x]}}|| like the English '''h''' if followed by "a"; otherwise it is pronounced more roughly (not unlike the Scots language Scots '''ch''') |- ||''j''|| {{IPA|[tÉ•]}}|| like '''q''', but unaspirated. (To get this sound, first take the sound halfway between '''j'''oke and '''ch'''eck, and then slowly pass it backwards along the tongue until it is entirely clear of the tongue tip.) While this exact sound is not used in English, the closest match is the '''j''' in a'''j'''ar, not the '''s''' in A'''s'''ia; this means that "Beijing" is pronounced like "bay-jing", '''not''' like "beige-ing". |- ||''q''|| {{IPA|[tÉ•Ê°]}}|| like '''ch'''urch; pass it backwards along the tongue until it is free of the tongue tip |- ||''x''|| {{IPA|[É•]}}|| like '''sh''', but take the sound and pass it backwards along the tongue until it is clear of the tongue tip; very similar to the final sound in German language German i'''ch''', Portuguese language Portuguese en'''x'''ada, lu'''x'''o, '''x'''ícara, pu'''x'''a, and to '''h'''uge or '''H'''ugh in some English dialects |- ||''zh''|| {{IPA|[tÊ‚]}}|| '''ch''' with no aspiration (take the sound halfway between '''j'''oke and '''ch'''urch and curl it upwards); very similar to mer'''g'''er in American English, but not voiced |- ||''ch''|| {{IPA|[tÊ‚Ê°]}}|| as in '''ch'''in, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to nur'''tu'''re in American English, but strongly aspirated |- ||''sh''|| {{IPA|[Ê‚]}}|| as in '''sh'''inbone, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to under'''sh'''irt in American English |- ||''r''|| {{IPA|[Ê?]}} or {{IPA|[É»]}}|| similar to the English '''r''' in '''r'''ank, but with the lips spread and with the tongue curled upwards |- ||''z''|| {{IPA|[ts]}}|| unaspirated '''c''' (halfway between be'''ds''' and be'''ts'''), (more common example is su'''ds''') |- ||''c''|| {{IPA|[tsÊ°]}}|| like '''ts''', aspirated (more common example is ca'''ts''') |- ||''s''|| {{IPA|[s]}}|| as in '''s'''un |}

Pronunciation of finals
The following is an exhaustive list of all finals in Standard Mandarin. Those ending with a final '''-r''' are listed at the end. To find a given final: #Remove the initial consonant. For zh-, ch-, sh-, both letters should be removed, they are single consonants spelt with two letters. #However, y- or w- are part of the final; do not remove those. ##Syllables beginning with y- and w- are simply standalone forms of finals beginning with i-, u-. and ü-. #If the initial is j-, q-, and x-, and the final starts with -u-, then change the -u- to -ü-. {| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%" !'''Pinyin'''||'''International Phonetic Alphabet IPA'''||'''Final-only form'''||'''Explanation''' |- ||''a''|| {{IPA|[É‘]}} ||'''a'''|| as in "f'''a'''ther" |- ||''o''|| {{IPA|[uÉ”]}} ||'''o'''|| starts with English "oo" and ends with a plain continental "o". |- ||''e''|| {{IPA|[ɤ]}}, {{IPA|[É™]}} ||'''e'''|| a backward, unrounded vowel, which can be formed by first pronouncing a plain continental "o" (Australian English AuE and New Zealand English NZE l'''aw''') and then spreading the lips without changing the position of the tongue. That same sound is also similar to English "d'''uh'''", but not as open. Many unstressed syllables in Chinese use the schwa (ide'''a'''), and this is also written as ''e''. |- ||''ê''|| {{IPA|[É›]}} ||(n/a)|| as in "b'''e'''t". Only used in certain interjections. |- ||''ai''|| {{IPA|[aɪ]}} ||'''ai'''|| like English "eye", but a bit lighter |- ||''ei''|| {{IPA|[ei]}} ||'''ei'''|| as in "h'''ey'''" |- ||''ao''|| {{IPA|[É‘ÊŠ]}} ||'''ao'''|| approximately as in "c'''ow'''"; the ''a'' is much more audible than the ''o'' |- ||''ou''|| {{IPA|[ou̯]}} ||'''ou'''|| as in "s'''o'''" |- ||''an''|| {{IPA|[an]}} ||'''an'''|| starts with plain continental "a" (Australian English AuE and New Zealand English NZE b'''u'''d) and ends with "n" |- ||''en''|| {{IPA|[É™n]}} ||'''en'''|| as in "tak'''en'''" |- ||''ang''|| {{IPA|[É‘Å‹]}} ||'''ang'''|| as in German ''Angst'', including the English loan word ''angst'' (starts with the vowel sound in f'''a'''ther and ends in the velar nasal; like s'''ong''' in American English) |- ||''eng''|| {{IPA|[ɤŋ]}} ||'''eng'''||like ''e'' above but with ng added to it at the back |- ||''er''|| {{IPA|[aÉ»]]}} ||'''er'''|| like ''ar'' (exists only on own, or as last part of final in combination with others- see bottom of list) |- ! colspan=4 | Finals beginning with i- (y-) |- ||''i''|| {{IPA|[i]}} ||'''yi'''|| like English "ee", except when preceded by "c", "ch", "r", "s", "sh", "z" or "zh" |- ||''i''|| {{IPA|[zÌ©]}}, {{IPA|[Ê?Ì©]}} || ''n/a'' || When preceded by "c", "ch", "r", "s", "sh", "z" or "zh", "i" should be pronounced as a natural extension of those sounds in the same position, but slightly more open to allow for a clear-sounding vowel to pass through |- || ''ia'' || {{IPA|[iÉ‘]}} ||'''ya'''|| as '''i''' + '''a'''; like English "'''ya'''rd" |- || ''io'' || {{IPA|[iÉ”]}} ||'''yo'''|| as '''i''' + plain continental "o". Only used in certain interjections. |- ||''ie''|| {{IPA|[iÉ›]}} ||'''ye'''|| as '''i''' + '''ê'''; but is very short; ''e'' (pronounced like ''ê'') is pronounced longer and carries the main stress (similar to the initial sound '''ye''' in '''yet''') |- ||''iao''|| {{IPA|[iÉ‘ÊŠ]}} ||'''yao'''|| as '''i''' + '''ao''' |- ||''iu''|| {{IPA|[iou̯]}} ||'''you'''|| as '''i''' + '''ou''' |- ||''ian''|| {{IPA|[iÉ›n]}} ||'''yan'''|| as '''i''' + '''ê''' + '''n'''; like English '''yen''' |- ||''in''|| {{IPA|[in]}} ||'''yin'''|| as '''i''' + '''n''' |- ||''iang''|| {{IPA|[iÉ‘Å‹]}} ||'''yang'''|| as '''i''' + '''ang''' |- ||''ing''|| {{IPA|[iɤŋ]}} ||'''ying'''|| as '''i''' + '''eng''' |- ! colspan=4 | Finals beginning with u- (w-) |- ||''u''|| {{IPA|[u]}} ||'''wu'''|| like English "oo" |- ||''ua''|| {{IPA |[ua]}} ||'''wa'''|| as '''u''' + '''a''' |- ||''uo''|| {{IPA|[uÉ”]}} ||'''wo'''|| as '''u''' + '''o'''; the ''o'' is pronounced shorter and lighter than in the ''o'' final |- ||''uai''|| {{IPA|[uaɪ]}} ||'''wai'''|| as '''u''' + '''ai''' |- ||''ui''|| {{IPA|[ueɪ]}} ||'''wei'''|| as '''u''' + '''ei'''; here, the ''i'' is pronounced like ''ei'' |- ||''uan''|| {{IPA|[uan]}} ||'''wan'''|| as '''u''' + '''an''' |- ||''un''|| {{IPA|[uÉ™n]}} ||'''wen'''|| as '''u''' + '''en'''; like the ''on'' in the English ''won'' |- ||''uang''|| {{IPA|[uÉ‘Å‹]}} ||'''wang'''|| as '''u''' + '''ang'''; like the ''ang'' in English ''angst'' or ''anger'' |- ||''ong''|| {{IPA|[ÊŠÅ‹]}} ||''n/a'''|| starts with the vowel sound in b'''oo'''k and ends with the velar nasal sound in si'''ng''' |- ||''n/a''|| {{IPA|[uɤŋ]}} ||'''weng'''|| as '''u''' + '''eng''' |- ! colspan=4 | Finals beginning with ü- (yu-) |- ||''ü''|| {{IPA|[y]}} ||'''yu'''|| as in German "'''ü'''ben" or French "l'''u'''ne" (To get this sound, say "ee" with rounded lips) |- ||''üe''|| {{IPA|[yÉ›]}} ||'''yue'''|| as '''ü''' + '''ê'''; the ''ü'' is short and light |- ||''üan''|| {{IPA|[yÉ›n]}} ||'''yuan'''|| as '''ü''' + '''ê'''+ '''n'''; |- ||''ün''|| {{IPA|[yn]}} ||'''yun'''|| as '''ü''' + '''n'''; |- ||''iong''|| {{IPA|[yÊŠÅ‹]}} ||'''yong'''|| as '''ü''' + '''ong'''; |} {| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%" |- ! colspan=3 | Finals that are a combination of finals above + '''r''' final |- !'''Pinyin'''||'''International Phonetic Alphabet IPA'''||'''Explanation''' |- | ar || {{IPA|[aÉ»]}} || like ''ar'' in American English "art" |- | er || {{IPA|[ɤɻ]}} || as '''e''' + '''r'''; not to be confused with ''er'' final on its own- this form only exists with an initial character before it |- | or || {{IPA|[uɔɻ]}} || as '''o''' + '''r''' |- | air || {{IPA|[aÉ»]}} || as '''ar''' |- | eir || {{IPA|[ɤɻ]}} || as '''er''' |- | aor || {{IPA|[É‘ÊŠÉ»]}} || as '''ao''' + '''r''' |- | our || {{IPA|[ou̯ɻ]}} || as '''ou''' + '''r''' |- | anr || {{IPA|[É‘É»]}} || as '''ar''' |- | angr || {{IPA|[ɑ̃ɻ]}} || as '''ang''' + '''r''', with '''ng''' removed and the vowel nasalized |- | engr || {{IPA|[ɤ̃ɻ]}} || as '''eng''' + '''r''', with '''ng''' removed and the vowel nasalized |- | ir || {{IPA|[iÉ?]}} || as '''i''' + schwa + '''er''' |- | ir || {{IPA|[É?]}} || after "c", "ch", "r", "s", "sh", "z", "zh": as schwa + '''er'''. |- | iar || {{IPA|[iÉ‘É»]}} || as '''i''' + '''ar''' |- | ier || {{IPA|[iɛɻ]}} || as '''ie''' + '''r''' |- | iaor || {{IPA|[iÉ‘ÊŠÉ»]}} || as '''iao''' + '''r''' |- | iur || {{IPA|[iou̯ɻ]}} || as '''iou''' + '''r''' |- | ianr ||{{IPA|[iɛɻ]}} || as '''i''' + '''ar''' |- | inr || {{IPA|[iÉ?]}} || as '''ir''' |- | iangr || {{IPA|[iɑ̃ɻ]}} || as '''i''' + '''angr''' |- | ingr || {{IPA|[iɤ̃ɻ]}} || as '''i''' + '''engr''' |- | ur || {{IPA|[uÉ»]}} || as '''u''' + '''r''' |- | uar || {{IPA|[uÉ‘É»]}} || as '''u''' + '''ar''' |- | uor || {{IPA|[uɔɻ]}} || as '''uo''' + '''r''' |- | uair || {{IPA|[uaÉ»]}} || as '''u''' + '''ar''' |- | uir || {{IPA|[uÉ?]}} || as '''u''' + schwa + '''r''' |- | uanr || {{IPA|[uaÉ»]}} || as '''u''' + '''ar''' |- | unr || {{IPA|[uÉ?]}} || as '''u''' + schwa + '''r''' |- | uangr || {{IPA|[uɑ̃ɻ]}} || as '''u''' + '''angr''' |- | ongr || {{IPA|[ʊ̃ɻ]}} || as '''ong''' + '''r''', with '''ng''' removed and the vowel nasalized |- | ür || {{IPA|[yÉ?]}} || as '''ü''' + schwa + '''er''' |- | üer || {{IPA|[yɛɻ]}} || as '''üe''' + '''r''' |- | üanr || {{IPA|[yaÉ»]}} || as '''ü''' + '''ar''' |- | ünr || {{IPA|[yÉ?]}} || as '''ü''' + schwa + '''r''' |- | iongr || {{IPA|[yʊ̃ɻ]}} || as '''ü''' + '''ongr''' |}

Orthography


Letters
Pinyin differs from other romanizations in several aspects, such as: * ''w'' is placed before syllables starting with ''u''. * ''y'' is placed before syllables starting with ''i'' and ''ü''. * ''ü'' is written as ''u'' when there is no ambiguity (such as ''ju'', ''qu'', and ''xu''), but written as ''ü'' when there are corresponding ''u'' syllables (such as ''lü'' and ''nü'') * When preceded by a consonant, ''iou'', ''uei'', and ''uen'' are simplified as ''iu'', ''ui'', and ''un'' (which do not represent the actual pronunciation). * Like zhuyin, what are actually pronounced as ''buo'', ''puo'', ''muo'', and ''fuo'' are given a separate representation: ''bo'', ''po'', ''mo'', and ''fo''. * The apostrophe (') is used before ''É‘'', ''o'', and ''e'' to separate syllables in a word where ambiguity could arise, e.g., ''pi'ao'' (皮襖) vs. ''piao'' (票), and ''Xi'an'' (西安) vs. ''xian'' (å…ˆ). * ''Eh!'' alone is written as ''ê''; elsewhere as ''e''. Schwa is always written as ''e''. * ''zh'', ''ch'', and ''sh'' can be abbreviated as ''ẑ'', ''ĉ'', and ''Å?''. However, the shorthands are rarely used due to difficulty of entering them on computers. * ''ng'' has the uncommon shorthand of ''Å‹''. Most of the above are used to avoid ambiguity when writing words of more than one syllable in pinyin. For example ''uenian'' is written as ''wenyan'' because it is not clear which syllables make up ''uenian''; ''uen-ia'', ''uen-i-an'' and ''u-en-i-a'' are all possible combinations whereas ''wenyan'' is unambiguous because ''we'', ''nya'', etc. do not exist in pinyin. A summary of possible Pinyin syllables (not including tones), can be reviewed at: Pinyin table

Capitalization & formation
Those rules put into effect in 1988 by the National Educational Commission (国家教育委员会) and the National Language Commission (国家语言文字工作委员会). #General ##Single meaning: Words with a single meaning, which are usually set up of two characters (sometimes one, seldom three), are written together and not capitalized: rén; péngyou, qiÇŽokèlì (person; friend; chocolate) ##Combined meaning (2 characters): Same goes for words combined of two words to one meaning: hÇŽifÄ“ng; wèndá, quánguó (sea breeze; Q&A; 'pan-national') ##Combined meaning (4 or or more characters): Words with four or more characters having one meaning are split up with their original meaning if possible: wúfèng gÄ?ngguÇŽn; huánjìng bÇŽohù guÄ«huà (seamless steel-tube; environmental protection planning) #Duplicated words (AA and ABAB) ##AA: Duplicated characters (AA) are written together: rénrén; kànkàn; niánnián (everybody; to have a look; annual) ##ABAB: two characters duplicated (ABAB) are written separated: yánjiÅ« yánjiÅ«; xuÄ›bái xuÄ›bái (try again; snow-white) ##AABB: A hyphen is used with the schema AABB: láilái-wÇŽngwÇŽng; qiÄ?nqiÄ?n-wànwàn(go back and forth; numerous) #Nouns (míngcí) Nouns are written in one: zhuo1zi, mùtou (table, wood) ##Even if acompanied by a prefix and suffix: fùbùzhang3 (vice minister), chéngwùyuán (conducter), háizimen (children) ##Word of position are separated: mén wài (outdoor), hé li (in the river), huo3che1 shàngmian (on the train), Huáng Hé yi3nán (south of the Yellow River) ###Exeptions are words traditionally connected: tian1shang (at the sky), dìxia (on the floor), kong1zhong1 (in the air), hai3wài (overseas) ##Chinese names are separated from the given name which will be written as one: Li3 Huá, Wáng Jiàngguó, Zhang1 San1. ###Titles following the name are separated and are not capitalized: Wáng bùzhang3 (Minister Wang), Li3 xian1sheng (Mr. Li), Tián zhu3rèn (Director Tian), Zhào tóngzhì (Comrade Zhao). ###The forms of address, Lao3, Xiao3, Dà and A, are capitalized: Xiao3 Liú (Young Mr. Liu), Dà Li3 (Great Li), A San3 (Ah San), Lao3 Qián (Senior Qian), Wú Lao3 (Senior Wu) ####Exeptions are: Kong3zi3 (Master Confucius), Bao1gong1 (Judge Bao), Xi1shi1 (historical person), Mèngchángjun1 (historical person) ##Geographical names of China:: Bei3jing1 Shì (City of Beijing), Hébei3 Sheng3 (Province of Hebei), Ya1lù Jiang1 (Yalu stream), Tài Shan1 (Mt. Taishan), Dòngtíng Hú (Lake Donting), Táiwan1 Hai3xiá (Taiwan strait) ##Non-chinese names translated back from Chinese will be written by their original writing: Marx, Einstein, London, Tokyo #Verbs Verbs and their suffixes (-zhe, -le and -guo) are written as one: kànzhe/kànle/kànguo (to see/saw/seen), jìngxíngzhe (to implement). Le as it appears in the end of a sentence is separated though: Huo3che1 dào le (The train arrived). ##Verbs and their objects are separated: kàn xìn (read a letter), chi1 yú (eat fish), kai1 wánxiào (to be kidding). ##If verbs and their complements are each monosyllabic, they are written together, if not, separated: gao3huài ("to make broken"), da3si3 (hit to death), huàwéi ("to become damp"), zheng3li3 hao3 (to straighten out), gai3xie3 wéi (rewrite a screenplay) #Adjectives (xíngróngcí) A monosyllabic adjective and its reduplication are written as one: meng1meng1lìang (dim), lìangtang1tang1 (shining bright) ##Complements of size or degree (as xie1, yi1xie1, dianr3, yi1dianr3) are written separated: dà xie1 (a little bigger), kuài yi1dianr3 (a bit faster) #Pronouns (dàicí) ##The plural suffix -men directly follows up: wo3men (we), ta1men (they) ##The demonstrative pronoun zhè (this), nà (that) and the question pronoun na3 (which) are separated: zhè rén (this person), nà cì huìyì (that meeting), na3 zhang1 bàozhi3 (which newspaper) ###Exeptions are: nàli (there), zhèbian (over here), zhège (this piece), zhème (so), zhèmeyàng (that way)... and similar ones. ##Words like gè/mei3 (every, each), mou3 (any), ben3 (that), gai1 (that), wo3 (mine, our), are separated from the measure words following them: gè guó (every nation), gè gè (everyone), mei3 nián (every year), mou3 gong1chang3 (a certain factory), wo3 xiào (our school). #Numerals and measure words (shùcí hé liàngcí) #Fuctional words #Proverbs #Capitalization #Separation in the end of a text row

Tones
Image:Pinyin_Tone_Chart.png right|thumb|115px|Relative pitch changes of the four tones The Pinyin system also incorporates suprasegmental phonemes to represent the four Mandarin (linguistics)#Tones tones of Mandarin. Each tone is indicated by a diacritical mark above a non-medial vowel. Many books printed in China mix fonts, with vowels with tone marks rendered in a different font than the surrounding text, a practice that tends to give such Pinyin texts a typographically ungainly appearance. This style, most likely rooted in early technical limitations, has led many to believe that Pinyin's rules call for this practice and also for the use of "{{Unicode|ɑ}}" (with no curl over the top) rather than the standard style of the letter "a" found in most fonts. The official rules of Hanyu Pinyin, however, specify no such practice. Note that tone marks can also appear on consonants in certain vowelless exclamations. # The first tone is represented by a macron (ˉ) added to the pinyin vowel: #:
{{Unicode|(É‘Ì„) Ä? Ä“ Ä« Å? Å« Ç– Ä€ Ä’ Ī ÅŒ Ū Ç•}} # The second tone is denoted by an acute accent (ËŠ): #:
{{Unicode|(É‘Ì?) á é í ó ú ǘ Ã? É Ã? Ó Ú Ç—}} # The third tone is symbolized by a caron (ˇ, also known as a reverse circumflex). Note, it is officially not a breve ( ˘ ), lacking a downward angle), although this misuse is somewhat common on the Internet. #:
{{Unicode|(É‘ÌŒ) ÇŽ Ä› Ç? Ç’ Ç” Çš Ç? Äš Ç? Ç‘ Ç“ Ç™}} # The fourth tone is represented by a grave accent (Ë‹): #:
{{Unicode|(ɑ̀) à è ì ò ù ǜ À È Ì Ò Ù Ǜ}} # The fifth or neutral tone is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark: #:
{{Unicode|(ɑ) a e i o u ü A E I O U Ü}}
:(In some cases, this is also written with a dot before the syllable; for example, ·ma.) These tone marks normally are only used in Mandarin textbooks or in foreign learning texts, but they are essential for correct pronunciation of Mandarin syllables, as exemplified by the following classical example of five characters whose pronunciations differ only in their tones: Traditional characters: {| class="wikitable" || {{Ruby-big|媽|mÄ?}} {{Ruby-big|麻|má}} {{Ruby-big|馬|mÇŽ}} {{Ruby-big|ç½µ|mà}} {{Ruby-big|å—Ž|·ma}} || {{Listen|filename=zh-pinyin_tones_with_ma.ogg |title=mÄ? má mÇŽ mà |description=A sound sample of the four tones}} |} Simplified characters: {| class="wikitable" || {{Ruby-big|妈|mÄ?}} {{Ruby-big|麻|má}} {{Ruby-big|马|mÇŽ}} {{Ruby-big|骂|mà}} {{Ruby-big|å?—|·ma}} || {{Listen|filename=zh-pinyin_tones_with_ma.ogg |title=mÄ? má mÇŽ mà |description=A sound sample of the four tones}} |} The words are "mother", "hemp", "horse", "admonish" and a question particle, respectively.

Numbers in place of tone marks
Since most computer fonts do not contain the macron or caron accents, a common convention is to add a digit representing the tone to the end of individual syllables. For example, "tóng" (tong with the rising tone) is written "tong2". The number used for each tone is as the order listed above (except the "fifth tone", which, in addition to being numbered 5, is also sometimes not numbered or numbered zero, as in ''ma0'' (�/嗎, an interrogative marker). {| class="wikitable" |- ! Tone !! Tone Mark !! Number added to end of syllable
in place of tone mark !! Example using
tone mark !! Example using
number |- | First || macron (ˉ) || style="text-align: center" | 1 || style="text-align: center" |mÄ? || style="text-align: center" |ma1 |- | Second|| acute accent (ËŠ) || style="text-align: center" | 2 || style="text-align: center" |má || style="text-align: center" |ma2 |- | Third || caron (ˇ) || style="text-align: center" | 3 || style="text-align: center" |mÇŽ || style="text-align: center" |ma3 |- | Fourth || grave accent (Ë‹) || style="text-align: center" | 4 || style="text-align: center" |mà || style="text-align: center" |ma4 |- | "Neutral" or "Fifth" || No mark
or dot before syllable (·) || style="text-align: center" | no number
5
0 || style="text-align: center" |ma
·ma|| style="text-align: center" |ma
ma5
ma0 |}

Rules for placing the tone mark
The rules for determining on which vowel the tone mark appears are as follows: # If there is more than one vowel and the first vowel is ''i'', ''u'', or ''ü'', then the tone mark appears on the second vowel. # In all other cases, the tone mark appears on the first vowel (''y'' and ''w'' are not considered vowels for these rules.) The reasoning behind these rules is in the case of diphthongs and triphthongs, ''i'', ''u'', and ''ü'' (and their orthographic equivalents ''y'' and ''w'' when there is no initial consonant) are considered medial (linguistics) medial glides rather than part of the syllable nucleus in Chinese phonology. The rules ensure that the tone mark always appears on the nucleus of a syllable.

Miscellanea
An umlaut is placed over the letter ''u'' when it occurs after the initials ''l'' and ''n'' in order to represent the sound [y]. This is necessary in order to distinguish the front high rounded vowel in ''lü'' (e.g. 驴/驢 donkey) from the back high rounded vowel in ''lu'' (e.g. 炉/� oven). Tonal markers are added on top of the umlaut, as in ''lǘ''. However, the ''ü'' is ''not'' used in other contexts where it represents a front high rounded vowel, namely after the letters ''j'', ''q'', ''x'' and ''y''. For example, the sound of the word 鱼/魚 (fish) is transcribed in pinyin simply as ''yú'', not as ''yǘ''. This practice is opposed to Wade-Giles, which always uses ''ü'', and Tongyong Pinyin, which always uses ''yu''. Whereas Wade-Giles needs to use the umlaut to distinguish between ''chü'' (pinyin ''ju'') and ''chu'' (pinyin ''zhu''), this ambiguity cannot arise with pinyin, so the more convenient form ''ju'' is used instead of ''jü''. Genuine ambiguities only happen with ''nu''/''nü'' and ''lu''/''lü'', which are then distinguished by an umlaut diacritic. Many fonts or output methods do not support an umlaut for ''ü'' or cannot place tone marks on top of ''ü''. Likewise, using ''ü'' in input methods is difficult because it is not present as a simple key on many keyboard layouts. For these reasons ''v'' is sometimes used instead by convention. Occasionally, ''uu'' (double ''u''), ''u:'' (''u'' followed by a colon) or ''U'' (capital ''u'') is used in its place. See also: * Postal System Pinyin (unrelated) * Combining diacritic marks Unicode #U0300

Pinyin in Taiwan
The Republic of China or Taiwan adopted Tongyong Pinyin, a modified version of Hanyu Pinyin, on the national level in October 2002. The adoption of Tongyong Pinyin has also resulted in political controversy. Much of the controversy centered on issues of national identity, with proponents of Chinese reunification favoring the Hanyu Pinyin system which is used on the People's Republic of China, and proponents of Taiwanese independence favoring the use of Tongyong Pinyin. Localities with governments controlled by the Kuomintang, most notably Taipei City, have overridden the 2002 administrative order and converted to Hanyu Pinyin (although with a slightly different capitalization convention than the Mainland). As a result, English signs have inconsistent romanization in Taiwan, with many places using Tongyong Pinyin but some using Hanyu Pinyin, and still others not yet having had the resources to replace older Wade-Giles or MPS2 signage. This has resulted in the odd situation in Taipei City in which inconsistent pinyin are shown in freeway directions, with freeway signs, which are under the control of the national government, using one pinyin, but surface street signs, which are under the control of the city government, using the other. Elementary education continues to teach pronunciation using the zhuyin system in Taiwan. Although the ROC government has stated the desire to use romanization rather than zhuyin in education, the lack of agreement on which form of pinyin to use and the huge logistical challenge of teacher training has stalled these efforts.

Other languages
Pinyin-like systems have been devised for other variants of Chinese. Guangdong Romanization is a set of romanizations devised by the government of Guangdong province for Standard Cantonese Cantonese, Teochew dialect Teochew, Hakka (linguistics) Hakka (Moiyen dialect), and Hainan dialect Hainanese. All of these are designed to use Latin letters in a similar way to Pinyin. In addition, in accordance to the "Regulation of Phonetic Transcription in Hanyu Pinyin Letters of Place Names in Minority Nationality Languages" (《少数民æ—?语地å??汉语拼音字æ¯?音译转写法 》) promulgated in 1976, place names in non-Chinese languages like Mongol language Mongol, Uyghur language Uyghur, and Tibetan language Tibetan are also officially transcribed using Pinyin. The pinyin letters (26 Roman letters, ü, and ê) are used to approximate the non-Chinese language in question as closely as possible. This results in spellings that are different from both the customary spelling of the place name, and the Pinyin spelling of the name in Chinese: {| class="wikitable" ! Customary !! Official (Pinyin for local name) !! Pinyin for Chinese name |- | Shigatse || Xigazê || RìkÄ?zé |- | Urumchi || Ãœrümqi || WÅ«lÇ”mùqí |}

Controversy
Debate continues about the actual suitability of pinyin as a Chinese romanization method. This argument revolves around pinyin's unconventional use of Roman letters, of which the phonology phonological values of some phonemes are quite different from that of most languages utilizing the Roman alphabet. Some sinologists praise this as pinyin's flexibility in that it allows the entire Roman alphabet to be adapted to the Chinese sound system (compared to Wade-Giles, which leaves out or underuses many letters). Others point out that pinyin letter values are so unconventional that for a person unfamiliar with Chinese, they result in a larger number of mispronunciations when compared to Wade-Giles. However, as not only the PRC but by now most institutions and publications have adopted it, the debate seems increasingly obsolete. Pinyin, like all systems of romanization, has certain limitations that users should be aware of: * Like the spelling systems of any other language, pinyin does not represent English pronunciation and should not be pronounced according to English conventions. Readers are advised to learn pinyin phonetic conventions, bearing in mind that many sounds have no equivalents in English. * Chinese characters can indicate semantic cues. But since pinyin is based only on the sounds of Standard Mandarin, these semantic cues are no longer preserved. For speakers of Chinese spoken languages other Chinese spoken variants who do not speak Standard Mandarin, pinyin is unsuitable for use in reading and writing because these sounds do not correspond to their speech. * The phonotactics of spoken Mandarin dictate a relatively small set of possible syllables and there is a potential for homonyms. Because of this, pinyin can be ambiguous, especially when transcribing Standard Written Chinese, which uses formal constructions not often found in speech. However, this should not be an issue in the transcription of normal spoken Mandarin conversation since speakers would not use such ambiguous constructions in speech. Computer systems long provided the most convincing argument in favor of pinyin; early computers were able to display nothing but 7-bit ASCII (essentially the 26 letters, the 10 digits, and a handful of punctuation marks). Most contemporary computer systems are now able to readily display characters from not only Chinese, but from many other writing systems as well. In addition, multiple input method editors exist that use standard keyboards to type them (pinyin being one such method). Now, Personal digital assistant PDAs and digitizing tablets allow users to write characters with a stylus, which can then be stored and edited like any text. Thus, this justification is no longer as strong as it used to be. Nonetheless, pinyin has gained wide acceptance, and supporters believe it is useful for students of Chinese as a second language.

Accessibility note
Some Internet users using the Internet Explorer browser may have difficulty displaying characters bearing the third tone mark. If the following character displays as an empty square box: Ç”, do the following: on the Internet Explorer menu at the top of the screen select "Tools," then "Internet Options," then "Accessibility." Check the box labeled "Ignore font styles specified on Web pages." Click "OK." Then select "Tools," then "Internet Options," then "Fonts." In the menu at the left, select "Arial Unicode MS" (or "Arial," if this font is not available), then click "OK." It may also be necessary to select "View," then "Encoding," then "Unicode (UTF-8)."

See also
* Pinyin table * List of ISO transliterations

References
*Yin Binyong 尹斌庸 and Mary Felley (1990). ''Chinese Romanization''. Pronunciation and Orthography (Hanyu pinyin he zhengcifa 汉语拼音和正�法). Beijing: Sinolingua. ISBN 7-80052-148-6 / ISBN 0-8351-1930-0.

Auto-converters

- Chinese characters to Pinyin (with tone marks and English meaning)
- Pinyin with tone numbers to Pinyin with tone marks (can handle 5 for neutral tone)
- Pinyin with tone numbers to Pinyin with tone marks
- Rikai.com A web-mediator that adds mouseover pinyin readings to Chinese web-pages.
- DimSum Chinese Reading Assistant Add pinyin (or bopomofo, etc.) to text, web pages, or RTF files. Includes dictionary, flashcards.
- Java library supporting Chinese characters to Pinyin

Other

- Pinyin.info — very complete explanation of Unicode pinyin.
- Pinyin info Unicode testpage
- Learn about Pinyin Learn Mandarin Chinese online for free.
- Read/Write using Unicode
- Tongyong and Hanyu Pinyin
- Sinosplice - Pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese
- MDBG free online Chinese-English dictionary
- Chinese Romanization Converter - Convert between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and other common Romanization systems.
- English Wiktionary - Useful resource for identifying Chinese characters (copy and paste individual characters into "search" box) Category:Chinese language romanization Category:Latin-derived alphabets Category:Mandarin terms ar:بينيين bg:Пинин br:Pinyin ca:Pinyin cs:Pinyin da:Pinyin de:Pinyin et:Pinyin es:Pinyin eo:Hanyu Pinyin fr:Hanyu pinyin gl:Pinyin ko:병� id:Hanyu Pinyin it:Pinyin lt:Pinyin hu:Pinjin nl:Hanyu pinyin ja:ピン音 pl:Pinyin pt:Pinyin ru:Пиньинь sl:Pinjin fi:Pinyin sv:Pinyin th:พินอิน tr:pinyin zh:汉语拼音 see Pinyin

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