Pinyin spelling rules

The same sound can be written i, yi or y in pinyin, and the rules for choosing fit on a single page of the 1958 scheme.

The finals in unit 3 were written the way the scheme’s table lists them, ia, uei, üan and so on. In real pinyin many of them look different, because the scheme adds a handful of spelling rules. They exist to keep syllables short, to mark where one syllable ends and the next begins, and to stop two different syllables from looking the same. None of them change the sound. Once you know the six rules below you can read any pinyin you see on a sign, in a dictionary or in a textbook.

1. y and w when there is no initial

When a final starting with i, u or ü has no initial in front, pinyin writes y or w so that the syllable has a clear start. i becomes yi, ia becomes ya, ie ye, iao yao, iou you, ian yan, in yin, iang yang, ing ying, iong yong. u becomes wu, ua wa, uo wo, uai wai, uei wei, uan wan, uen wen, uang wang, ueng weng. The ü finals become yu, yue, yuan and yun, and the two dots disappear because yu cannot be confused with anything else. So 我 wǒ (I) is the final uo with no initial, and 有 yǒu (to have) is iou.

2. When ü loses its dots

After j, q and x the dots on ü are dropped too: 去 qù (to go), 句 jù (sentence), 学 xué (to study). This is safe because j, q and x never combine with a plain u, so ju can only mean jü. After n and l the dots must stay, because both sounds exist there: 女 nǚ (woman) is different from 努 nǔ (effort), and 绿 lǜ (green) from 路 lù (road). Many keyboards have no ü key, so a national keyboard standard from the Ministry of Education uses v instead: typing lv gives lü.

3. Shortened iu, ui and un

When iou, uei and uen follow an initial, the middle vowel is dropped in writing: l plus iou is liu, g plus uei is gui, l plus uen is lun. You can still hear a trace of the missing vowel, especially in the third and fourth tones, so 六 liù (six) sounds a little like lyoh, and 贵 guì (expensive) like gway.

4. Where the tone mark goes

The scheme puts the tone mark on the main vowel of the syllable. In practice three steps settle every case. If there is an a or an e, it takes the mark: hǎo, xiè, guān. If there is ou, the o takes it: gǒu, yǒu. Otherwise the last vowel takes it, which covers the shortened forms: liù, guì, duō. When the mark falls on i, the dot of the i is left out, as in nǐ. The neutral tone gets no mark at all.

5. The apostrophe, and 6. writing words

When a syllable starting with a, o or e follows another syllable, an apostrophe marks the break if the boundary could be misread. The scheme’s own example is pí’ǎo, a fur-lined jacket, which without the mark could be read as piao. The city of 西安 is Xī’ān, two syllables, while xiān without the mark is one syllable, 先 (first). Pinyin also writes a word as one unit, not syllable by syllable: péngyou (friend), Zhōngguó (China), with capitals for names, Běijīng. The national orthography standard GB/T 16159 sets out these word rules in detail, and tone marks are often written as numbers on computers, such as ma3 for mǎ.