Pinyin Totally Explained

Everything about Hanyu Pinyin totally explained

Pinyin, more formally Hanyu Pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "spell sound", or the spelling of the sound.
Pinyin uses the Latin alphabet to represent sounds in Standard Mandarin. The way these letters represent sounds in Standard Mandarin doesn't correspond to any other one particular language that uses the Roman alphabet. For example, the sounds indicated in pinyin by b and g correspond more closely to the sounds indicated by p and k in some Western uses of the Latin script, for example, French. Other letters, like j, q, x or zh, indicate sounds that don't correspond to any exact sound in English. Some of the transcriptions in pinyin, such as the ian ending, don't correspond to English pronunciations, either. This means that people who have not studied Chinese, or who have studied Chinese but not the pinyin system, are likely to severely mispronounce some words if they attempt to pronounce pinyin according to their own language spellings. However, this very disregard for conventional pronunciations of the letters has enabled pinyin to represent Chinese sounds with economy and internal consistency.

History

In 1954, the Ministry of Education of the PRC assigned a Committee (Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language) to reform the written language. This committee developed Hanyu Pinyin based upon existing systems of that time (Gwoyeu Romatzyh of 1928, Latinxua Sin Wenz of 1931, it uses the diacritic markings from Zhuyin). The main force behind pinyin was Zhou Youguang (born 1905, turning 103 in 2008 in good health). Zhou Youguang was working in a New York bank when he decided to return to China to help rebuild the country after the war. He became an economics professor in Shanghai. The government assigned him to help the development of a new romanisation system. The switch to language and writing largely saved him from the wrath of the Cultural Revolution of Mao Zedong.
   A first draft was published on February 12 1956. The first edition of Hanyu Pinyin was approved and adopted at the Fifth Session of the 1st National People's Congress on February 11 1958. It was then introduced to primary schools as a way to teach Standard Mandarin pronunciation, and used to improve the literacy rate among adults. In 2001, the Chinese Government issued the National Common Language Law, providing a legal basis for applying pinyin. Hanyu Pinyin superseded older romanization systems such as Wade-Giles (1859; modified 1892) and Chinese Postal Map Romanization, and replaced Zhuyin as the method of Chinese phonetic instruction in mainland China. Hanyu Pinyin was adopted in 1979 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as the standard romanization for modern Chinese (ISO-7098:1991). It has also been accepted by the Government of Singapore, the Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and many other international institutions. It has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese language text into computers. Chinese speaking Standard Mandarin at home use pinyin to help children associate characters with spoken words which they already know; however, for the many Chinese who don't use Standard Mandarin at home, pinyin is used to teach them the Standard Mandarin pronunciation of words when they learn them in elementary school.
   Pinyin vowels are pronounced similarly to vowels in Romance languages, and most consonants are similar to English. A pitfall for English-speaking novices is, however, the unusual pronunciation of x, q, j, c, zh, ch, sh and z (and sometimes -i) and the unvoiced pronunciation of d, b, and g. 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 initials and finals, which represent the segmental phonemic portion of the language. Initials are initial consonants, while finals are all possible combinations of medials (semivowels coming before the vowel), the nucleus vowel, and 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 the, the second indicates pinyin.

	Bilabial		Labio- dental	Co- articulated	Alveolar		Retroflex		Alveolo- palatal		Palatal	Velar
Plosive	[p] b	[pʰ] p			[t] d	[tʰ] t						[k] g	[kʰ] k
Nasal	[m] m			[n] n
Lateral approximant					[l] l
Affricate					[ts] z	[tsʰ] c	[ʈʂ] zh	[ʈʂʰ] ch	[tɕ] j	[tɕʰ] q
Fricative			[f] f		[s] s		[ʂ] sh	[ʐ] ¹ r	[ɕ] x			[x] h
Approximant				[w]² w			[ɻ] ¹ r				[j] ³ y

¹ /ɻ/ may phonetically be /ʐ/ (a voiced retroflex fricative). This pronunciation varies among different speakers, and isn't two different phonemes.
² the letter "w" may be considered as an initial or a final, and may be pronounced as /w/ or /u/
³ the letter "y" may be considered as an initial or a final, and may be pronounced as /j/ or /i/
Conventional order (excluding w and y), derived from the Zhuyin system, is:

b p m f

d t n l

g k h

j q x

zh ch sh r

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 The only syllable-final consonants in standard Mandarin are -n and -ng, and -r which is attached as a grammatical suffix. Chinese syllables ending with any other consonant is either from a non-Mandarin language (southern Chinese languages such as Cantonese, or minority languages of China), or it indicates the use of a non-pinyin Romanization system (where final consonants may be used to indicate tones).

Nucleus	Coda	Medial
Nucleus	Ø
a	Ø	[a] a -a	[ia] ya -ia	[ua] wa -ua
	i	[aɪ] ai -ai		[uaɪ] wai -uai
	u	[ɑʊ] ao -ao	[iɑʊ] yao -iao
	n	[an] an -an	[iɛn] yan -ian	[uan] wan -uan	[yɛn] yuan -üan ²
	ŋ	[ɑŋ] ang -ang	[iɑŋ] yang -iang	[uɑŋ] wang -uang
ə	Ø	[ɤ] e -e	[iɛ] ye -ie	[uɔ] wo -uo/-o ³	[yœ] yue -üe ²
	i	[eɪ] ei -ei		[ueɪ] wei -ui
	u	[oʊ] ou -ou	[ioʊ] you -iu
	n	[ən] en -en	[in] yin -in	[uən] wen -un	[yn] yun -ün ²
	ŋ	[əŋ] eng -eng	[iŋ] ying -ing	[uəŋ], [ʊŋ] ⁴ weng -ong	[yʊŋ] yong -iong
Ø		[z̩], [ʐ̩̩] -i	[i] yi -i	[u] wu -u	[y] yu -ü ²

¹ /ər/ (而, 二, etc.) is written as er. For other finals formed by the suffix -r, pinyin doesn't use special orthography; one simply appends -r to the final that it's 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, x, or y.
³ "uo" is written as "o" after b, p, m, or f.
⁴ It is pronounced [ʊŋ] when it follows an initial, and pinyin reflects this difference.
In addition, ê [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, as several of these sounds don't correspond directly to sounds in English.

Pronunciation of initials

Pinyin	b>	b>Explanation
	[p]	unaspirated p, as in spit
	[pʰ]	aspirated p, as in pit
	[m]	as in English mom
	[f]	as in English fun
	[t]	unaspirated t, as in stop
	[tʰ]	aspirated t, as in top
	[n]	as in English nit
	[l]	as in English love
	[k]	unaspirated k, as in skill
	[kʰ]	aspirated k, as in kill
	[x]	like the English h if followed by "a"; otherwise it's pronounced more roughly (not unlike the Scots ch)
	[tɕ]	like q, but unaspirated. (To get this sound, first take the sound halfway between joke and check, and then slowly pass it backwards along the tongue until it's entirely clear of the tongue tip.) While this exact sound isn't used in English, the closest match is the j in ajar, not the s in Asia; this means that "Beijing" is pronounced like "bay-jing", not like "beige-ing".
	[tɕʰ]	like church; pass it backwards along the tongue until it's free of the tongue tip
	[ɕ]	like sh, but take the sound and pass it backwards along the tongue until it's clear of the tongue tip; very similar to the final sound in German ich, and to huge or Hugh in some English dialects
	[ʈʂ]	ch with no aspiration (take the sound halfway between joke and church and curl it upwards); very similar to merger in American English, but not voiced
	[ʈʂʰ]	as in chin, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to nurture or tree in American English, but strongly aspirated
	[ʂ]	as in shinbone, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to undershirt in American English
	[ʐ] or [ɻ]	Similar to the English r in rank, but with the lips spread and with the tongue curled upwards. The initial "r" can also be described as French "j" [ʒ] or a cross between English "r" and French "j". In Cyrillised Chinese the same sound is always rendered with letter "ж" (French "j").
	[ts]	unaspirated c (halfway between beds and bets) (more common example is suds)
	[tsʰ]	like ts, aspirated (more common example is bats)
	[s]	as in sun
	[w] or [u]	may be considered as an initial or a final, and may be pronounced as w or u as in English
	[j] or [i]	may be considered as an initial or a final, and may be pronounced as y or i as in English

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're single consonants spelt with two letters.
Although y- and w- are consonants nevertheless they may be considered as part of finals and don't remove those.
1. Syllables beginning with y- and w- may be considered as standalone forms of finals "i, u, ü" and finals beginning with "i-, u-, ü-".

If a syllable begins with j-, q-, x-, or y-, and the final is -u or starts with -u-, then change -u or -u- to -ü or -ü-.

Pinyin	b>	b>Final-only form	b>Explanation
	[z̩], [ʐ̩]	n/a	Displayed as an "i" after: "zh", "ch", "sh", "r", "z", "c" or "s". After "z", "c" or "s", sounds like a prolonged "zzz" sound. After "zh", "ch", "sh" or "r", sounds like a prolonged American "r" sound. In some dialects, pronounced slightly more open, allowing a clear-sounding vowel to pass through (a high, central, unrounded vowel, something like IPA /ɨ/; say 'zzz' and lower the tongue just enough for the buzzing to go away).
	[ɑ]	a	as in "father"
	[uɔ]	o	starts with English "oo" and ends with a plain continental "o".
	[ɤ], [ə]	e	a back, unrounded vowel, which can be formed by first pronouncing a plain continental "o" (AuE and NZE law) and then spreading the lips without changing the position of the tongue. That same sound is also similar to English "duh", but not as open. Many unstressed syllables in Chinese use the schwa (idea), and this is also written as e.
	[ɛ]	(n/a)	as in "bet". Only used in certain interjections.
	[aɪ]	ai	like English "eye", but a bit lighter
	[ei]	ei	as in "hey"
	[ɑʊ]	ao	approximately as in "cow"; the a is much more audible than the o
	[ou̯]	ou	as in "so"
	[an]	an	starts with plain continental "a" (AuE and NZE bud) and ends with "n"
	[ən]	en	as in "taken"
	[ɑŋ]	ang	as in German Angst, including the English loan word angst (starts with the vowel sound in father and ends in the velar nasal; like song in American English)
	[ɤŋ]	eng	like e above but with ng added to it at the back
	[ʊŋ]	n/a	starts with the vowel sound in book and ends with the velar nasal sound in sing'
	[ɑɻ]	er	like English "are" (exists only on its own, or as the last part of a final in combination with others - see bottom of this list)
Finals beginning with i- (y-)
	[i]	yi	like English "ee", except when preceded by "c", "ch", "r", "s", "sh", "z" or "zh"
	[iɑ]	ya	as i + a; like English "yard"
	[iɔ]	yo	as i + plain continental "o". Only used in certain interjections.
	[iɛ]	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)
	[iɑʊ]	yao	as i + ao
	[iou̯]	you	as i + ou
	[iɛn]	yan	as i + ê + n; like English yen
	[in]	yin	as i + n
	[iɑŋ]	yang	as i + ang
	[iŋ]	ying	as i but with ng added to it at the back
	[iʊŋ]	yong	as i + ong
Finals beginning with u- (w-)
	[u]	wu	like English "oo"
		wa	as u + a
	[uɔ]	wo	as u + o; the o is pronounced shorter and lighter than in the o final
	[uaɪ]	wai	as u + ai
	[ueɪ]	wei	as u + ei; here, the i is pronounced like ei
	[uan]	wan	as u + an
	[uən]	wen	as u + en; like the on in the English won
	[uɑŋ]	wang	as u + ang; like the ang in English angst or anger
	[uɤŋ]	weng	as u + eng
Finals beginning with ü- (yu-)
	[y]	yu	as in German "üben" or French "lune" (To get this sound, say "ee" with rounded lips)
	[yɛ]	yue	as ü + ê; the ü is short and light
	[yɛn]	yuan	as ü + ê+ n;
	[yn]	yun	as ü + n;
Finals that are a combination of finals above + r final
ar	[ɑɻ]		like ar in American English "art"
er	[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	[uɔɻ]		as o + r
air	[ɑɻ]		as ar
eir	[ɝ]		as schwa + r
aor	[ɑʊɻ]		as ao + r
our	[ou̯ɻ]		as ou + r
anr	[ɑɻ]		as ar
enr	[əɻ]		as schwa + r
angr	[ɑ̃ɻ]		as ang + r, with ng removed and the vowel nasalized
engr	[ɤ̃ɻ]		as eng + r, with ng removed and the vowel nasalized
ongr	[ʊ̃ɻ]		as ong + r, with ng removed and the vowel nasalized
ir	[iəɻ]		as i + schwa + r
ir	[əɻ]		after "c", "ch", "r", "s", "sh", "z", "zh": as schwa + r.
iar	[iɑɻ]		as i + ar
ier	[iɛɻ]		as ie + r
iaor	[iɑʊɻ]		as iao + r
iur	[iou̯ɻ]		as iou + r
ianr	[iɑɻ]		as i + ar
inr	[iəɻ]		as ir
iangr	[iɑ̃ɻ]		as i + angr
ingr	[iɤ̃ɻ]		as i + engr
iongr	[yʊ̃ɻ]		as i + ongr
ur	[uɻ]		as u + r
uar	[uɑɻ]		as u + ar
uor	[uɔɻ]		as uo + r
uair	[uɑɻ]		as u + ar
uir	[uɝ]		as u + schwa + r
uanr	[uɑɻ]		as u + ar
unr	[uəɻ]		as u + schwa + r
uangr	[uɑ̃ɻ]		as u + angr
ür	[yəɻ]		as ü + schwa + r
üer	[yɛɻ]		as ue + r
üanr	[yɑɻ]		as ü + ar
ünr	[yəɻ]		as ü + schwa + r

Orthography

Letters

Pinyin differs from other romanizations in several aspects, such as the following:

Syllables starting with u are written as w in place of u (for example ueng is written as weng). Standalone u is written as wu.

Syllables starting with i are written as y in place of i (for example iou is written as you). Standalone i is written as yi.

Syllables starting with ü are written as yu in place of ü (for example üe is written as yue).

ü is written as u when there's no ambiguity (such as ju, qu, and xu), but written as ü when there are corresponding u syllables (such as lü and nü). In such situations where there are corresponding u syllables, it's often replaced with v on a computer, making it easier to type on a standard keyboard.

When preceded by a consonant, iou, uei, and uen are simplified as iu, ui, and un (which don't represent the actual pronunciation).

As in zhùyīn, what are actually pronounced as buo, puo, muo, and fuo are given a separate representation: bo, po, mo, and fo.

The apostrophe (') is often used before a, o, and e to separate syllables in a word where ambiguity could arise, especially when omitting tone marks, for example, pi'ao vs. piao (票), and Xi'an (西安) vs. xian (先).

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 ŝ (z, c, s with a circumflex). However, the shorthands are rarely used due to difficulty of entering them on computers.

ng has the uncommon shorthand of ŋ. 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 isn't clear which syllables make up uenian; uen-ian, uen-i-an and u-en-i-an are all possible combinations whereas wenyan is unambiguous because we, nya, etc. don't exist in pinyin. A summary of possible pinyin syllables (not including tones), can be reviewed at: pinyin table

Capitalization and word formation

Although Chinese characters represent single syllables, Mandarin Chinese is a polysyllabic language. Spacing in pinyin is based on whole words, not single syllables. However, there are often ambiguities in partitioning a word. Orthographic rules were put into effect in 1988 by the National Educational Commission (国家教育委员会, pinyin: Guójiā Jiàoyù Wěiyuánhuì ) and the National Language Commission (国家语言文字工作委员会, pinyin: Guójiā Yǔyán Wénzì Gōngzuò Wěiyuánhuì).

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, qiǎokèlì (person; friend; chocolate)
Combined meaning (2 characters): Same goes for words combined of two words to one meaning: hǎifēng; wèndá, quánguó (sea breeze; Q&A; 'pan-national')
Combined meaning (4 or more characters): Words with four or more characters having one meaning are split up with their original meaning if possible: wúfèng gāngguǎn; huánjìng bǎohù guīhuà (seamless steel-tube; environmental protection planning)

Duplicated words

AA: Duplicated characters (AA) are written together: rénrén (everybody), kànkàn (to have a look), niánnián (every year)
ABAB: two characters duplicated (ABAB) are written separated: yánjiū yánjiū (to study, to research), xuěbái xuěbái (snow-white)
AABB: A hyphen is used with the schema AABB: láilái-wǎngwǎng (go back and forth), qiānqiān-wànwàn (numerous)

Nouns and names (míngcí): Nouns are written in one: zhuōzi (table), mùtou (wood)

Even if accompanied by a prefix and suffix: fùbùzhǎng (vice minister), chéngwùyuán (conductor), háizimen (children)
Words of position are separated: mén wài (outdoor), hé li (in the river), huǒchē shàngmian (on the train), Huáng Hé yǐnán (south of the Yellow River)
1. Exceptions are words traditionally connected: tiānshang (in the sky), dìxia (on the ground), kōngzhōng (in the air), hǎiwài (overseas)
Surnames are separated from the given name: Lǐ Huá, Zhāng Sān. If the given name consists of two syllables, it should be written as one: Wáng Jiàngguó.
Titles following the name are separated and are not capitalized: Wáng bùzhǎng (minister Wang), Lǐ xiānsheng (Mr. Li), Tián zhǔrèn (director Tian), Zhào tóngzhì (comrade Zhao).
The forms of addressing people with Lǎo, Xiǎo, Dà and A are capitalized: Xiǎo Liú ([young] Ms. Liu), Dà Lǐ ([great] Mr. Li), A Sān (Ah San), Lǎo Qián ([senior] Mr. Qian), Lǎo Wú ([senior] Ms. Wu)
1. Exceptions are: Kǒngzǐ (Master Confucius), Bāogōng (Judge Bao), Xīshī (a historical person), Mèngchángjūn (a historical person)
Geographical names of China: Běijīng Shì (City of Beijing), Héběi Shěng (Province of Hebei), Yālù Jiāng (Yalu River), Tài Shān (Mt. Taishan), Dòngtíng Hú (Lake Donting), Táiwān Hǎixiá (Taiwan strait)
Non-Chinese names translated back from Chinese will be written by their original writing: Marx, Einstein, London, Tokyo

Verbs (dòngcí): 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: Huǒchē dào le (The train [has] arrived).

Verbs and their objects are separated: kàn xìn (read a letter), chī yú (eat fish), kāi wánxiào (to be kidding).
If verbs and their complements are each monosyllabic, they're written together, if not, separated: gǎohuài ("to make broken"), dǎsǐ (hit to death), huàwéi ("to become damp"), zhěnglǐ hǎo (to straighten out), gǎixiě wéi (rewrite a screenplay)

Adjectives (xíngróngcí): A monosyllabic adjective and its reduplication are written as one: mēngmēnglìang (dim), lìangtāngtāng (shining bright)

Complements of size or degree (as xiē, yīxiē, diǎnr, yīdiǎnr) are written separated: dà xiē (a little bigger), kuài yīdiānr (a bit faster)

Pronouns (dàicí)

The plural suffix -men directly follows up: wǒmen (we), tāmen (they)
The demonstrative pronoun zhè (this), nà (that) and the question pronoun nǎ (which) are separated: zhè rén (this person), nà cì huìyì (that meeting), nǎ zhāng bàozhǐ (which newspaper)
1. Exceptions are: nàli (there), zhèbian (over here), zhège (this piece), zhème (so), zhèmeyàng (that way)... and similar ones.
Numerals and measure words (shùcí hé liàngcí)
1. Words like gè/měi (every, each), mǒu (any), běn (that), gāi (that), wǒ (mine, our), are separated from the measure words following them: gè guó (every nation), gè gè (everyone), měi nián (every year), mǒu gōngchǎng (a certain factory), wǒ xiào (our school).

Tones

The pinyin system also uses diacritics for the four tones of Mandarin, usually above a non-medial vowel. Many books printed in China mix fonts, with vowels and tone marks rendered in a different font than the surrounding text, tending 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 "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 (Flat or High Level Tone) is represented by a macron (ˉ) added to the pinyin vowel:

:
ā (ɑ̄) ē ī ō ū ǖ Ā Ē Ī Ō Ū Ǖ

The second tone (Rising or High-Rising Tone) is denoted by an acute accent (ˊ):

:
á (ɑ́) é í ó ú ǘ Á É Í Ó Ú Ǘ

The third tone (Falling-Rising or Low Tone) is marked by a caron/háček (ˇ). It isn't the rounded breve (˘), though a breve is sometimes substituted due to font limitations.

:
ǎ (ɑ̌) ě ǐ ǒ ǔ ǚ Ǎ Ě Ǐ Ǒ Ǔ Ǚ

The fourth tone (Falling or High-Falling Tone) is represented by a grave accent (ˋ):

:
à (ɑ̀) è ì ò ù ǜ À È Ì Ò Ù Ǜ

The fifth or neutral tone (Neutral Tone) is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark:

:
a (ɑ) 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're essential for correct pronunciation of Mandarin syllables, as exemplified by the following classic example of five characters whose pronunciations differ only in their tones:

Traditional characters: Simplified characters:

The words are "mother", "hemp", "horse", "admonish" and a question particle, respectively.

Numbers in place of tone marks

Since most computer fonts don't 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 (吗/嗎, an interrogative marker).

Tone	Tone Mark	Number added to end of syllable in place of tone mark	Example using tone mark	Example using number
First	macron (ˉ )	1	mā	ma1	mɑ˥˥
Second	acute accent (ˊ )	2	má	ma2	mɑ˧˥
Third	caron (ˇ )	3	mǎ	ma3	mɑ˨˩˦
Fourth	grave accent (ˋ )	4	mà	ma4	mɑ˥˩
"Neutral" or "Fifth"	No mark or dot before syllable (·)	no number 5 0	ma ·ma	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's more than one vowel and the first vowel is i, u, or ü, then the tone mark appears on the last vowel.

In all other cases, the tone mark appears on the vowels in this order: a, o, e. (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's no initial consonant) are considered 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.
Another algorithm for determining the vowel on which the tone mark appears is as follows:

First, look for an "a" or an "e". If either vowel appears, it takes the tone mark. There are no possible pinyin syllables that contain both an "a" and an "e".

If there's no "a" or "e", look for an "ou". If "ou" appears, then the "o" takes the tone mark.

If none of the above cases hold, then the last vowel in the syllable takes the tone mark.

The character "ü"

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 (for example 驴/驢 donkey) from the back high rounded vowel in lu (for example 炉/爐 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 can't 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 don't support an umlaut for ü or can't place tone marks on top of ü. Likewise, using ü in input methods is difficult because it isn't 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.

Comparison chart

Pinyin in Taiwan

Taiwan adopted Tongyong Pinyin on the national level in October 2002. Tongyong Pinyin is a modified version of Hanyu Pinyin. 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, the use of romanization on signage in Taiwan is inconsistent, 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 transcriptions 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. This situation is also ironic in a historical sense, as it was the KMT that long promoted the use of Wade-Giles system (of which Taiwanese pinyin is essentially a modified form).
Primary education continues to teach pronunciation using the zhùyīn system in Taiwan. Although the ROC government has stated the desire to use romanization rather than zhùyīn 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 Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka (Moiyen dialect), and 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 (少数民族语地名汉语拼音字母音译转写法) promulgated in 1976, place names in non-Chinese languages like Mongol, Uyghur, and Tibetan are also officially transcribed using pinyin. The pinyin letters (26 Roman letters, ü, 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:

Customary	Official (pinyin for local name)	Chinese name	inyin for Chinese name
Shigatse	Xigazê	日喀则	Rìkāzé
Urumchi	Ürümqi	乌鲁木齐	Wūlǔmùqí
Lhasa	Lhasa	拉萨	Lāsà
Golmud	Golmud	格尔木	Gé'ěrmù

� See also: Tibetan Pinyin

Comparison with other orthographies

Pinyin is now used by foreign students learning Chinese as a second language.
   Pinyin assigns some Roman letters phonological values which are quite different from that of most languages. In particular, English speakers using their native pronunciation conventions will find Wade-Giles to be much closer to the correct sound.
   Pinyin is purely a representation of the sounds of Mandarin, therefore it lacks the semantic cues that Chinese characters can provide. It is also unsuitable for transcribing some Chinese spoken languages other than Mandarin.
   Simple computer systems, able only to display only 7-bit ASCII text (essentially the 26 Latin letters, 10 digits and punctuation marks) long provided the most convincing argument in favor of pinyin over Hanzi. Today however, most computer systems are able to display characters from Chinese and many other writing systems as well, and have them entered with a Latin keyboard using an input method editor. Alternatively, some PDAs, tablet PCs and digitizing tablets allow users to input characters directly by writing with a stylus.

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: ǔ, 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." After that, select "Tools," then "Internet Options," then "Fonts." In the menu at the left, select "Arial Unicode MS" (or "Arial," if this font isn't available), then click "OK." It may also be necessary to select "View," then "Encoding," then "Unicode (UTF-8)."

Entering toned pinyin with Mac OS X

Activate the "US Extended" keyboard in System Preferences and then do:

Option-a and then to create the first tones: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū

Option-e and then to create the second tones: á, é, í, ó, ú

Option-v and then to create the third tone: ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, ǔ

Option-` and then to create the fourth tone: à, è, ì, ò, ù

u and then Shift-Option-u and then Shift-Option- gives ǖ, ǘ, ǚ or ǜ.

v may be entered as a to produce a ü. For instance, Option-e v produces ǘ. Option-u u produces a ü without tone marks.

Entering toned pinyin with Windows

Many Chinese IME's allow an additional Hanyu Pinyin toggle in addition to the simplified/traditional toggle. The user can then type pinyin and tone marks using the alphanumeric keys on a standard keyboard; the popular is one such example. Pinyinput

is a Windows-based IME that allows you to type toned pinyin with ease. Because it works at the system level, it'll allow you to type pinyin with tones in any Windows program just as easily as you'd type Chinese (in fact even easier, because you don't need to select the correct character). Activate the IME then start typing pinyin. Type a number from 1-4 after a pinyin syllable, and the corresponding tone will automatically be placed on the correct vowel of that syllable.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Hanyu Pinyin'.

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