The languages of China - Pinyin (phonetic spelling)

Even though there have been different ways to transcribe Chinese characters, such as the Wade-Giles system, the only official approach is the Pinyin system, a system of Romanization of Chinese written characters approved in 1958 by the government of the People’s Republic of China and officially adopted in 1979.
The Wade-Giles system was introduced by Sir Thomas Wade in 1859, and development by hid successor in Chinese Studies at Cambridge University, Herbert Giles. That system was familiar to the western people. In the 1930s, Lin Yutang and Zhao Yuanren devised another system called “national Romanization”. When World War Two broke out, Yale University introduced a program of Chinese training for Air Force pilots and introduced a new system, which was more clearly related to American pronunciation. Now Pinyin has become the dominant system.
The application of Pinyin system replaced the old use of the more complex Wade-Giles system. The purpose is to promote Puyonghua and to do away with characters for both domestic and international easy learning.

In the Wade-Giles system, people had “Peking” while the official transcription now is “Beijing” in Pinyin. Please do not get confused when you enter a restaurant for Peking duck while the beautiful girl serves you with Beijing duck. It is the same duck, with the same taste. It is only a matter of transcription, not a matter of taste. A Beijing duck plus a cup of moutai will definitely assure you that you are enjoying the same Peking duck.
Here is a table of Pinyin alphabets. You will find that most alphabets are pronounced as in English:

“a” as the “a” in “car”
“o” as the “wo” in “work”
“e” as the “e” in “stern”
“i” as the “es” in “east”
“u” as the “u” in “flute”
“ü” as the German “ü”
“b” as the “b” in “boy”
“p” as the “p” in “pea”
“m” as the “m” in “mother”
“f” as the “f” in “father”
“d” as the “d” in “dask”
“t” as the “t” in “toy”
“n” as the “n” in “nurse”
“l” as the “l” in “lead”
“g” as the “g” in “girl”
“k” as the “k” in “desk”
“h” as the “h” in “hurry”
“j” as the “j” in “jeep”
“x” as the “sh” in “ship”, thinly sounded
“z” as the “dz” in “buds”
“c” as the “ts” in “bats”
“s” as the “s” in “soul”
“zh” as the “dge” in “judge”
“ch” as the “ch” in “chocolate”
“sh” as the “sh” in “shore”
“r” as the “З” in sound in “treasure”
“y” as the “y” in “yaed”
“w” as the “w” in “work”
“ai” as the “i” in “high”
“ao” as the “or” sound in “morning”
“an” as the “an” in “Anthony”
“ang” as the Franch “ā”
“ou” as the “oa” in “boat”
“ong” as the Franch “כֿ”
“ei” as the “a” in “bake”
“en” as the “en” in “enter”
“eng” as the “ung” in “lung”
“ing” as the “ing” in “shining”
“ui” as the “ay” in “ray”
“un” as the “un” in “drunk”

Sometimes there is the need to use the apostrophe to avoid ambiguity in Pinyin. For example, when the old city of “西安” is transcribed in Pinyin, there is an apostrophe “′” between the two syllables as “xi′an”, otherwise it will be pronounced as “xian”, a one-syllable character.

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