Mandarin Romanization Table

Introduction: The following table includes all the syllables of correctly Romanized Mandarin in three systems:

• Hanyu Pinyin (The universal modern standard)
• Wade-Giles (A Victorian system in wide use until about 1970)
• Gwoyeu Romatzyh or GR or "tonal spelling" (The ROC official, but little observed, standard 1928-1984) (GR spellings are here given in all four tones.)

This table does not provide guidance on the pronunciation of these spellings.

(This page is simply a table. If you prefer, you can use the interactive Romanization Data Base to enter a spelling and be shown all the possible interpretations of it.)

Non-Standard WG Spellings: In a very few works (most notably Needham's Science & Civilisation in China) you will find the use of h instead of an apostrophe in what is otherwise normal Wade-Giles transcription (e.g. phan instead of p'an). In some sources the initials ts, ts', k, and k' before i are used where standard WG would write ch and ch'.

Non-Mandarin & "Postal" Spellings: This table does not include transcription of Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien, or other non-Mandarin spellings (such as Arthur Wolf's "simpua" or Myron Cohen's "sekoi"). Nor does it include old spellings of place names (such as Amoy, Foochow, Swatow, Canton, Tientsin, or Peking) or current but non-systematic spellings of place names in Taiwan (such as Keelung or Tamsui). Many of those can be found in the notes to the maps on this web site or in the interactive Names & Terms data base. (Search by keyword and content rather than just keyword.)

Errors: This table does not help if you are using a source that makes mistakes in the Romanization (such as leaving out apostrophes in WG, or writing lu instead of lü in WG or Pinyin). In general you will find many errors in published WG transcriptions, relatively few in Pinyin. I have never seen a published error in a GR transcription, but GR has never been widely used.

Instructions: You can use the "find" function of your web brower to locate a spelling without necessarily knowing which Romanization it represents, and the table will help you to interpret it and to see the comparable spellings in other systems. Note that some spellings occur in more than one system, so when you do the search you should be prepared to search more than once until you find the line that is appropriate. ("Shi," for example, is a very different syllable in GR and PY. "Yu" is quite different in WG and PY. And so on.)

• lo and no In the Wade-Giles system, the spelling "lo" is confusingly used for two quite different syllables which are spelled le and luo in Pinyin. The rare syllable spelled lo in Pinyin is also spelled lo in Wade-Giles. Similarly the WG spelling "no" does service ambiguously for Pinyin ne and nuo.
• jo In the Wade-Giles system, the spelling "jo" is confusingly used for two quite different syllables which are spelled re and ruo in Pinyin.