phonetic transcription

Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human language. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet (such as the International Phonetic Alphabet).
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Noun
1. a transcription intended to represent each distinct speech sound with a separate symbol
(hypernym) transcription, written text
(part-meronym) phonetic symbol

Throughout the ages, several systems of describing the sounds of Chinese characters have been designed. Different systems have been created in different countries and with different alphabets. When the sounds of the Chinese language are described with the Latin/Roman alphabet, it is referred to as "romanisation".

The first romanisation systems for Mandarin Chinese were created in 1605 by Matteo Ricci and in 1625 by Nicolas Trigault. The most wellknow systems for transliteration in the modern age are Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Yale and Zhuyin (popularly called "Bopomofo").

In the following examples, you can see one and the same phrase in different forms of transcription.
Pinyin:
Wade-Giles:
Chinese characters with Zhuyin:
Zhuyin by itself:
Hanzi:

In this glossary, you can search Chinese syllables and sounds according to Pinyin or Wade-Giles romanisation, and be able to see how the same sounds would be transcribed with other systems. You will also find simple explanations of some basic consepts of Chinese phonetics.

Further reading: aspiration, Bopomofo, Chinese consonants, hanzi, Pinyin, tones, tone-sandhi, Wade-Giles, Zhuyin 

"Pinyin" literally means "phonetic spelling". The system was developed in the Sovied Union in 1931, and a slightly revised version was in 1958 introduced as the official system to transcribe Mandarin Chinese in the Peoples Republic of China.

The system makes use of the Latin/Roman characters "A" to "Z" (minus "V") plus four types of accents that denote the tones of each syllable. Some European letters are used for sounds not entirely corresponding to the letters (e.g. "Q" and "X" are used for sounds that might be described as "tch" and "sch").

Most countries of the modern world tend to use this system when romanising Chinese today - only emitting the tones. In China, the system is used for road signs, maps, brand names, computer input, Chinese Braille, telegrams, semaphore, in dictionaries, when teaching Chinese and many other purposes.

Enter the romanisation for for a syllable in Mandarin Chinese according to Pinyin or Wade-Giles, and this glossary will give you the corresponding transliteration according to other systems!

Further reading: Bopomofo, Chinese phonetics, hanzi, tones, Wade-Giles, Zhuyin 

In the middle of the 19:th century Sir Thomas Wade introduced a system of transcribing Chinese characters with Latin/Roman characters. Professor Herbert Allen Giles published a modification of the same system in 1912. The system uses Latin/Roman letters for sounds rather similar to the actual letters - which is not always the case with Pinyin. Aspirations are marked with apostrophes. If marked, the tones are indicated with superscript numbers.

This system was, for many years, the most widely used to romanise Mandarin Chinese. People in the west are also still very familiar with transliterations written with this system (e.g. by rather saying "Peking" and "Mao Tze-Tung", that in Pinyin would be written as "Beijing" and "Mao Zedong"), even if Pinyin often is the recommended system to be used. The sytem is used in Taiwan for transliterating place names, street names and people's names. It also occasionally appear in Western publications (especially older works).

Enter the romanisation for for a syllable in Mandarin Chinese according to Pinyin or Wade-Giles, and this glossary will give you the corresponding transliteration according to other systems!

Further reading: aspiration, Bopomofo, Chinese phonetics, hanzi, Pinyin, tones, Zhuyin 

Zhuyin is a Chinese phonetic system adopted since 1913. Originally the system was called "zhuyin zimu" (phonetical alphabet), later it was renamed to "guoyin zimu" (national alphabet) and since 1930 it is named "zhuyin fuhao" (phonetic symbols). Zhuyin is popularly called "Bopomofo", since the first four symbols are "Bo", "Po", "Mo" and "Fo".

Each of the 37 symbols corresponds to one distinct phoneme. There are 21 initials (consonants) and 16 finals (combinations of vowels and, in some cases, "-n", "-ng" or "-r"). Chinese characters are transcribed with one, two or three symbols plus an accent signaling the tone of the syllable (compare with Pinyin!). However, the 1:st tone is not marked.

The symbols are
b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l:
g, k, h, j, q, x:
zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, s:
a, ai, an, ang, ao:
e, ê, ei, en, eng, er (-r):
i (yi), o, ou, u (wu), y (yü): (or )

There is also an extra 38:th symbol for "v", that is only used when transcribing foreign texts:

Transliterations in Zhuyin are often written on the side of regular characters:


The Zhuyin system is sometimes used in linguistic literature published in Asia. The system is particularly popular in Taiwan, where it's used for dictionaries, children's books, text books for foreigners, some newspapers and magazines and to show Taiwanese pronunciation and to spell special Taiwanese words for which no regular Chinese characters exist.

Enter the romanisation for for a syllable in Mandarin Chinese according to Pinyin or Wade-Giles, and this glossary will give you the corresponding transliteration according to Zhuyin!

Further reading: Chinese phonetics, hanzi, Pinyin, tones, Wade-Giles 

"Hanzi" means "Chinese character" in Chinese. In some cases, Chinese characters are transcribed with other Chinese characters.

Enter the romanisation for for a syllable in Mandarin Chinese according to Pinyin or Wade-Giles, and this glossary will give you the corresponding Hanzi-characters!

Further reading: Bopomofo, Chinese phonetics, Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Zhuyin