Pinyin

Pinyin (??, p?ny?n) literally means "join (together) sounds" (a less literal translation being "phoneticize", "spell" or "transcription") in Chinese and usually refers to Hàny? P?ny?n (????, literal meaning: "Han language pinyin"), which is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin. Pinyin was approved in 1958 and adopted in 1979 by the government in the People's Republic of China. It superseded older transcriptions like the Wade-Giles system (1859; modified 1912) or Bopomofo. Similar systems have been designed for other Chinese spoken variants and non-Han minority languages in the PRC.

Rules given in terms of English pronunciation

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

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Pronunciation of initials

Pronunciation of finals

The following is an exhaustive list of all finals, with or without final -r.

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To find the pronunciation of a final:

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• Look for the entire combination rather than the individual letters. For example, look for ian, not i + a + n.
• For syllables starting with y- or w-, change the y- to i- and w- to u-, then take the i- and u- as part of the final. (E.g. yan -> ian, where "ian" is the final.) If this results in ii-, uu-, and iu-, change those to i-, u-, and ü- respectively. (E.g. yin -> in, wu -> u, yue -> üe)
• If the initial is j-, q-, and x-, and the final starts with -u-, then change the -u- to -ü-.