|p=|poj=peng-im/pheng-im |bpmf=ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣ |h=pin²⁴ im²⁴ |j=ping³ jam¹ |wuu=phin^平 in^平 |altname=Scheme of the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet|s2=汉语拼音方案|t2=漢語拼音方案|p2= |bpmf2=ㄏㄢˋ ㄩˇ ㄆㄧㄣ ㄧㄣ ㄈㄤ ㄢˋ |h2=hon⁵⁵ ngi²⁴ pin²⁴ im²⁴ fong²⁴ on⁵⁵ |poj2=hàn-gú pheng-im hong-àn |j2=hon³ jyu⁵ ping³ jam¹ fong¹ on³ |wuu2=hoe^去 nyiu^上 phin^平 in^平 faon^平 oe^去}} Pinyin (; ) is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet to teach Mandarin Chinese in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters (汉字 / 漢字, ''hànzì'') into computers.

The system was developed from earlier versions by Zhou Youguang (b. 1906), who led a government committee in developing the system in China (PRC) in the 1950s. The system was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the official standard in Taiwan in 2009, where it is generally referred to as the New Phonetic System.

Name

In Chinese language education, pinyin is the common name to refer to the system. The more official name Hanyu Pinyin (汉语拼音 / 漢語拼音) is sometimes used, where means the spoken language of the Han (putonghua) and pinyin literally means "spelled sound" (phonetics).

History before 1949

In the early 1930s, CCP leaders trained in Moscow introduced a phonetic alphabet using roman letters developed in the Soviet Oriental Institute of Leningrad. This Sin Wenz or "New Writing", from which the present pinyin system differs only slightly, was much more linguistically sophisticated than earlier alphabets, with the major exception that it did not indicate tones.

In 1940 several thousand members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Chairman Mao and General Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy (in characters) for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Society's new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sen's son; Cai Yuanpei, the country's most prestigious educator; Tao Xingzhi a leading educational reformer; and Lu Xun, China's best known writer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies (including Lincoln, Franklin, Edison, Ford, and Charlie Chaplin), some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks. In 1940, the movement reached an apex when Mao's Border Region Government declared that the Sin Wenz had the same legal status as traditional characters in government and public documents. Many educators and political leaders looked forward to the day when they would be universally accepted and completely replace characters. Opposition arose, however, because the system was less well adapted to writing regional languages, and therefore would require learning Mandarin. Sin Wenzi fell into relative disuse during the following years.

History after 1949

Pinyin was championed by Zhou Youguang, often called "the father of Pinyin," as part of a Chinese government project in the 1950s. Zhou was working in a New York bank when he decided to return to China to help rebuild the country after the establishment of the PRC in 1949. Believing he was helping Mao Zedong build a democracy, Zhou became an economics professor in Shanghai. In 1954 China's Ministry of Education created a Committee for the Reform of the Chinese Written Language. Zhou was assigned the task of helping to develop a new romanization system.

''Hanyu pinyin'' was based on several preexisting systems: ''(Gwoyeu Romatzyh'' of 1928, ''Latinxua Sin Wenz'' of 1931, and the diacritic markings from ''zhuyin)''. "I’m not the father of pinyin," Zhou said years later. "I’m the son of pinyin. It’s [the result of] a long tradition from the later years of the Qing dynasty down to today. But we restudied the problem and revisited it and made it more perfect."

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 Chinese 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.

Usage

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. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) adopted pinyin as the standard romanization for modern Chinese in 1982 (ISO 7098:1982, superseded by ISO 7098:1991); the United Nations followed suit in 1986. It has also been accepted by the government of Singapore, the United States' Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and many other international institutions.

The spelling of Chinese geographical or personal names in pinyin has become the most common way to transcribe them in English. Pinyin has also become a useful tool for entering Chinese text into computers.

Chinese families who speak Mandarin as a mother tongue use pinyin to help children associate characters with spoken words which they already know. Chinese families who speak some other language as their mother tongue use the system to teach children Mandarin pronunciation when they learn vocabulary in elementary school.

Since 1958, Pinyin has been actively used in adult education as well, making it easier for formerly illiterate people to continue with self-study after a short period of Pinyin literacy instruction.

Pinyin has become a tool for many foreigners to learn the Mandarin pronunciation, and is used to explain the grammar and spoken Mandarin together with ''hanzi''. Books containing both Chinese characters and pinyin are often used by foreign learners of Chinese; pinyin's role in teaching pronunciation to foreigners and children is similar in some respects to furigana-based books (with hiragana letters written above or next to kanji) in Japanese or fully vocalised texts in Arabic ("vocalised Arabic").

The tone-marking diacritics are commonly omitted in popular news stories and even in scholarly works. An unfortunate effect of this is the increased ambiguity that results as to which Chinese characters are being represented.

Overview

The correspondence between Roman letter and sound in the system is sometimes idiosyncratic, though not necessarily more so than the way the Roman alphabet is employed in other languages. For example, the aspiration distinction between ''b, d, g'' and ''p, t, k'' is similar to that of English (in which the two sets are however also differentiated by voicing), but not to that of French. ''Z'' and ''c'' also have that distinction; however, they are pronounced as [ts], as in German and Italian, which do not have that distinction. From ''s, z, c'' come the digraphs ''sh, zh, ch'' by analogy with English ''sh, ch.'' Although this introduces the novel combination ''zh,'' it is internally consistent in how the two series are related, and reminds the trained reader that many Chinese pronounce ''sh, zh, ch'' as ''s, z, c.'' In the ''x, j, q'' series, the Pinyin use of ''x'' is similar to its use in Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, Basque and Maltese; and the Pinyin ''q'' is akin to its value in Albanian; both Pinyin and Albanian pronunciations may sound similar to the ''ch'' to the untrained ear. Pinyin vowels are pronounced in a similar way to vowels in Romance languages. More information on the pronunciation of all pinyin letters in terms of English approximations is given further below.

The pronunciation and spelling of Chinese words are generally given in terms of initials and finals, which represent the ''segmental phonemic'' portion of the language, rather than letter by letter. 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).

Initials and finals

Unlike in European languages, clusters of letters – initials () and finals () – and not consonant and vowel letters, are the fundamental elements in pinyin (and most other phonetic systems used to describe the Han language). Nearly each Mandarin syllable can be spelled with exactly one initial followed by one final, except in the special syllable ''er'' and when a trailing ''-r'' is considered part of a syllable (see below). The latter case, though a common practice in some sub-dialects, is rarely used in official publications. One exception is the city Harbin (), which is from the Manchu language originally.

Even though most initials contain a consonant, finals are not always simple vowels, especially in compound finals (), i.e., when a "medial" is placed in front of the final. For example, the medials [i] and [u] are pronounced with such tight openings at the beginning of a final that some native Chinese speakers (especially when singing or on stage) pronounce ''yī'' (, clothes, officially pronounced ) as , ''wéi'' (, to enclose, officially as ) as or . Often these medials are treated as separate from the finals rather than as part of them; this convention is followed in the chart of finals below.

Initials

In each cell below, the first line indicates the IPA, the second indicates pinyin. You can hear recordings of the Initials here

	!colspan="2"	!	!colspan="2"	!colspan="2"	!colspan="2"	!	!colspan="2"
!style="text-align: left;"
!style="text-align: left;"
!style="text-align: left;"
!style="text-align: left;"
!style="text-align: left;"
Semivowel

¹ may phonetically be (a voiced retroflex fricative). This pronunciation varies among different speakers, and is not two different phonemes. ² the letters "w" and "y" are not included in the table of initials in the official pinyin system. They are an orthographic convention for the medials "i", "u" and "ü" when no initial is present. When "i", "u" or "ü" are finals and no initial is present, they are spelled "yi", "wu", and "yu", respectively. ³ "y" is pronounced (a labial-palatal approximant) before "u".

The conventional order (excluding ''w'' and ''y''), derived from the zhuyin system, is: :{|cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" |- |style="background: #ccf;"|b p m f |style="background: #cfc;"|d t n l |style="background: #fcc;"|g k h |style="background: #fcf;"|j q x |style="background: #cff;"|zh ch sh r |style="background: #ffc;"|z c s |}

Finals

The following chart gives the combinations of medials and finals based on an analysis that assumes just two vowel nuclei, /a/ and /ə/; various allophones result depending on phonetic context.

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 You can hear recordings of the Finals here

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

!colspan=2 style="background:#efefef"ai-aiao-aoan-anang-ang style="background:#efefef"ei-eiou-ouen-eneng-eng-i

Final!	colspan=4|Medial
!Nucleus	!Coda	Ø
rowspan=5 style="background:#efefef"		Ø||	a-a	ya-ia	wa-ua
style="background:#efefef"		|		wai-uai
style="background:#efefef"		|	yao-iao
style="background:#efefef"		|	yan-ian	wan-uan	yuan-üan 2
style="background:#efefef"		|	yang-iang	wang-uang
rowspan=5 style="background:#efefef"		Ø||	e-e	ye-ie	3wo-uo/-o	yue-üe 2
style="background:#efefef"		|		wei-ui
style="background:#efefef"		|	you-iu
style="background:#efefef"		|	yin-in	wen-un	yun-ün 2
style="background:#efefef"		|	ying-ing	4weng-ong	yong-iong
colspan=2 style="background:#efefef"	Ø	|	yi-i	wu-u	yu-ü 2

¹ is written ''er''. For other finals formed by the suffix -r, pinyin does not use special orthography; one simply appends -r to the final that it is 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 Chinese. 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 "weng" is pronounced (written as "ong") when it follows an initial.

Technically, ''i, u, ü'' without a following vowel are finals, not medials, and therefore take the tone marks, but they are more concisely displayed as above. In addition, ''ê'' (欸, 誒) and syllabic nasals ''m'' (呒, 呣), ''n'' (嗯, 唔), ''ng'' (嗯, 𠮾) are used as interjections.

Rules given in terms of English pronunciation

All rules given here in terms of English pronunciation are approximate, as several of these sounds do not correspond directly to sounds in English.

Pronunciation of initials

!Pinyin, ,

|	help:IPA>IPA	English Approximation	Explanation
	''b''	|	spit	unaspirated p, as in spit
	''p''	|	pay	strongly aspirated p, as in pit
	''m''	|	may	as in English mummy
	''f''	|	fair	as in English fun
	''d''	|	stop	unaspirated t, as in stop
	''t''	|	take	strongly aspirated t, as in top
	''n''	|	nay	as in English nit
	''l''	|	lay	as in English love
	''g''	|	skill	unaspirated k, as in skill
	''k''	|	kay	strongly aspirated k, as in kill
	''h''	|	hay	h if followed by "a". It is pronounced roughly like the Scots language>Scots ch and Russian х (Cyrillic "kha").
	''j''	|	hatch	No equivalent in English. Like ''q,'' but unaspirated. Not the s in Asia, despite the common English pronunciation of "Beijing". The sequence "ji" word-initially is the same as the Japanese pronunciation of じ(ジ) ''ji''.
	''q''	|	cheek	No equivalent in English. Like cheek, with the lips spread wide with ''ee''. Curl the tip of the tongue downwards to stick it at the back of the teeth and strongly aspirate. The sequence "qi" word-initially is the same as the Japanese pronunciation of ち(チ) ''chi''.
	''x''	|	she	No equivalent in English. Like she, with the lips spread and the tip of your tongue curled downwards and stuck to the back of teeth when you say ''ee.'' The sequence "xi" is the same as the Japanese pronunciation of し(シ) ''shi''.
	''zh''	|	junk	Rather like ch (a sound between choke, joke, true, and drew, tongue tip curled more upwards). Voiced in a toneless syllable.
	''ch''	|	church	as in chin, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to nurture in American English, but strongly aspirated.
	''sh''	|	shirt	as in shoe, but with the tongue curled upwards; very similar to marsh in American English
	''r''	|	ray	z in azure and r in reduce, but with the tongue curled upwards, like a cross between English "r" and French "j". In Cyrillization of Chinese from pinyin>Cyrillised Chinese the sound is rendered with the letter "ж".
	''z''	|	reads	unaspirated c, similar to something between suds and cats; as in suds in a toneless syllable
	''c''	|	hats	like the English ts in cats, but strongly aspirated, very similar to the Polish c.
	''s''	|	say	as in sun
	''w''	|	way	as in water.*
	''y''	|	yea	as in yes. Before a ''u'', pronounce it with rounded lips.*
	'''''	|		new syllable*
	''v''	|		not used, reserved for other spoken Chinese and minorities languages. See #Other languages

;* Note on ''w, y,'' and the apostrophe: ''Y'' and ''w'' are equivalent to the semivowel medials ''i, u,'' and ''ü'' (see below). They are spelled differently when there is no initial consonant in order to mark a new syllable: ''fanguan'' is ''fan-guan,'' while ''fangwan'' is ''fang-wan'' (and equivalent to ''*fang-uan).'' With this convention, an apostrophe only needs to be used to mark an initial ''a, e,'' or ''o: Xi'an'' (two syllables: ) vs. ''xian'' (one syllable: ). In addition, ''y'' and ''w'' are added to fully vocalic ''i, u,'' and ''ü'' when these occur without an initial consonant, so that they are written ''yi, wu,'' and ''yu.'' Some Mandarin speakers do pronounce a or sound at the beginning of such words—that is, ''yi'' or , ''wu'' or , ''yu'' or ,—so this is an intuitive convention. See below for a few finals which are abbreviated after a consonant plus ''w/u'' or ''y/i'' medial: ''wen'' → C+''un,'' ''wei'' → C+''ui,'' ''weng'' → C+''ong,'' and ''you'' → C+''iu.''

Pronunciation of finals

The following is a list of finals in Standard Chinese, excepting most of those ending with a -r.

To find a given final: #Remove the initial consonant. ''Zh, ch,'' and ''sh'' count as initial consonants. #Change initial ''w'' to ''u'' and initial ''y'' to ''i.'' For ''weng, wen, wei, you,'' look under ''ong, un, ui, iu.'' #For ''u'' after ''j, q, x,'' or ''y,'' look under ''ü.''

, ''i'' ''u'', ''u'', ''ü'' ''ê''

|	help:IPA>IPA	Form with zero initial	Explanation
	''-i''	|	(''n/a'')	-i is a buzzed continuation of the consonant following z-, c-, s-, zh-, ch-, sh- or r-.	(In all other words, -i has the sound of bee; this is listed below.)
	''a''	|	a	as in "father"
	''e''	|	e	a diphthong consisting first of a back, unrounded semivowel (which can be formed by first pronouncing "w" and then spreading the lips without changing the position of the tongue) followed by a vowel similar to English "duh". Many unstressed syllables in Chinese use the schwa (idea), and this is also written as ''e''.
	''ai''	|	ai	like English "eye", but a bit lighter
	''ei''	|	ei	as in "hey"
	''ao''	|	ao	approximately as in "cow"; the ''a'' is much more audible than the ''o''
	''ou''	|	ou	as in "so"
	''an''	|	an	as in "ban" in British English (a more open fronted ''a'')
	''en''	|	en	as in "taken"
	''ang''	|	ang	as in German ''Angst'' (starts with the vowel sound in father and ends in the velar nasal; like song in some dialects of American English)
	''eng''	|	eng	like ''e'' in ''en'' above but with ng added to it at the back
	''er''	|	er	similar to the sound in "bar" in American English
colspan=4>Finals beginning with i- (y-)
	|	<		yi	like English bee.
	''ia''	|	ya	as i + a; like English "yard"
	''ie''	|	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)
	''iao''	|	yao	as i + ao
	''iu''	|	you	as i + ou
	''ian''	|	yan	as i + ê + n; like English yen
	''in''	|	yin	as i + n
	''iang''	|	yang	as i + ang
	''ing''	|	ying	as i + ng
colspan=4>Finals beginning with u- (w-)
	|	<		wu	like English "oo"
	''ua''	|	wa	as u + a
	''uo'', ''o''	|	wo	as u + o where the ''o'' (compare with the ''o'' interjection) is pronounced shorter and lighter (spelled as o after b, p, m or f).
	''uai''	|	wai	as u + ai like as in why
	''ui''	|	wei	as u + ei;
	''uan''	|	wan	as u + an;
	''un''	|	wen	as u + en; like the ''on'' in the English ''won'';
	''uang''	|	wang	as u + ang;
	''ong''	|	weng	starts with the vowel sound in book and ends with the velar nasal sound in sing; as u + eng in zero initial.
colspan=4>Finals beginning with ü- (yu-)
	|	<		yu	as in German "über" or French "lune" (To get this sound, say "ee" with rounded lips)
	''ue, üe''	|	yue	as ü + ê; the ''ü'' is short and light
	''uan''	|	yuan	as ü + ê + n;
	''un''	|	yun	as ü + n;
	''iong''	|	yong	as i + ong
colspan=4>Interjections
	|		(''n/a'')	as in "bet".
	''o''	|	(''n/a'')	Approximately as in "office" in British accent; the lips are much more rounded.
	''io''	|	(''n/a'')	as i + plain continental "o".

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'' (e.g., ''uan'' is written as ''wan''). Standalone ''u'' is written as ''wu''.

Syllables starting with ''i'' are written as ''y'' in place of ''i'' (e.g., ''ian'' is written as ''yan''). Standalone ''i'' is written as ''yi''.

Syllables starting with ''ü'' are written as ''yu'' in place of ''ü'' (e.g., ''üe'' is written as ''yue'').

''ü'' is written as ''u'' when there is 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 is 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 do not represent the actual pronunciation).

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

The apostrophe (') is used before a syllable starting with a vowel (''a'', ''o'', or ''e'') in a multiple-syllable word when the syllable does not start the word (which is most commonly realized as [ɰ]), unless the syllable immediately follows a hyphen or other dash. This is done to remove ambiguity that could arise, as in ''Xi'an'', which consists of the two syllables ''xi'' ("西") and ''an'' ("安") as opposed to ''xian'' for such words as "先". (This ambiguity does not occur when tone marks are used: The two tone marks in "Xīān" unambiguously show that the word consists of two syllables. However, even with tone marks, the city is usually spelled with an apostrophe as "Xī'ān".)

''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, and are confined mainly to Esperanto keyboard layouts.

''ng'' has the uncommon shorthand of ''ŋ''.

The letter ''v'' is unused (except in spelling foreign languages, languages of minority nationalities, and some dialects), despite a conscious effort to distribute letters more evenly than in Western languages. However, sometimes, for ease of typing into a computer, the ''v'' is used to replace a ''ü''.

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 is not 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. do not exist in pinyin. See the pinyin table article for a summary of possible pinyin syllables (not including tones).

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 (, person); péngyou (, friend), qiǎokèlì (, chocolate) ##Combined meaning (2 characters): Same goes for words combined of two words to one meaning: hǎifēng (, sea breeze); wèndá (, Q&A;), quánguó (, '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 (, seamless steel-tube); huánjìng bǎohù guīhuà (, 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 by), 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 (, under the river), huǒchē shàngmian (, on the train), Huáng Hé yǐnán (, south of the Yellow River) ###Exceptions are words traditionally connected: tiānshang (, in the sky or outerspace), 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./Mr. Liu), Dà Lǐ ([great;elder] Mr. Li), A Sān (Ah San), Lǎo Qián ([senior] Mr. Qian), Lǎo Wú ([senior] Mr. Wu) ###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) #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 are 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: mēngmēngliàng (dim), liàngtāngtāng (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) ###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) ##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), liǎng ge rén (two people). ##Numbers up to 100 are written as single words: sānshísān (thirty-three). Above that, the hundreds, thousands, etc. are written as separate words: jiǔyì qīwàn èrqiān sānbǎi wǔshíliù (900,072,356). ##The ''dì'' of ordinal numerals is hyphenated: ''dì-yī'' (first), dì-356 (356th). #Hyphenation In addition to the ordinals mentioned above, there are three situations where words are hyphenated. ##Coordinate and disjunctive compound words, where the two elements are conjoined or opposed, but retain their individual meaning: gōng-jiàn (bow and arrow), kuài-màn (speed: "fast-slow"), shíqī-bā suì (17–18 years old), dǎ-mà (beat and scold), Yīng-Hàn (English-Chinese [dictionary]), Jīng-Jīn (Beijing-Tianjin), lù-hǎi-kōngjūn (army-navy-airforce). ##Abbreviated compounds (''luèyǔ''): gōnggòng guānxì (public relations) → gōng-guān, chángtú diànhuà (long-distance telephone call) → cháng-huà. Exceptions are made when the abbreviated term has become established as a word in its own right, as in ''chūzhōng'' for ''chūjí zhōngxué'' (elementary high school). Abbreviations of proper-name compounds, however, should always be hyphenated: Běijīng Dàxué (Beijing University) → Běi-Dà. ##Four-syllable idioms: fēngpíng-làngjìng (calm and tranquil: "wind calm, waves down"), huījīn-rútǔ (spend money like water: "throw gold like dirt"), zhǐ-bǐ-mò-yàn (paper-brush-ink-inkstone [four coordinate words]). (The AA-BB reduplication above is an instance of this.)

Tones

The pinyin system also uses diacritics to mark the four tones of Mandarin. The diacritic is placed over the letter that represents the syllable nucleus, unless that letter is missing (see below). Many books printed in China use a mix of fonts, with vowels and tone marks rendered in a different font from 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 a Latin alpha ("") rather than the standard style of the letter ("") found in most fonts. The official rules of ''Hanyu Pinyin,'' however, specify no such practice.

# The first tone (Flat or High Level Tone) is represented by a macron (ˉ) added to the pinyin vowel: #: # The second tone (Rising or High-Rising Tone) is denoted by an acute accent (ˊ): #: # The third tone (Falling-Rising or Low Tone) is marked by a caron/háček (ˇ). It is not the rounded breve (˘), though a breve is sometimes substituted due to font limitations. #: # The fourth tone (Falling or High-Falling Tone) is represented by a grave accent (ˋ): #: # The fifth tone (Neutral Tone) is represented by a normal vowel without any accent mark: #: :(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 are 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", "scold" and a question particle, respectively.

Numerals in place of tone marks

Before the advent of computers, many typewriter fonts did not contain vowels with macron or caron diacritics. Tones were thus represented by placing a tone number at the end of individual syllables. For example, ''tóng'' is written ''tong2.'' The number used for each tone is as the order listed above, except the neutral tone, which is either not numbered, or given the number 0 or 5, e.g. ''ma5'' for 吗/嗎, an interrogative marker. style="text-align: center">1 acute accent ( ˊ ) caron ( ˇ ) grave accent ( ˋ ) No mark or dot before syllable (·)

Tone	in place of tone mark !! Example usingtone mark !! Example usingnumber!!help:IPA	IPA
First	macron ( ˉ )	|	mā	ma1
Second	|	2	má	ma2
Third	|	3	mǎ	ma3
Fourth	|	4	mà	ma4
"Neutral"	|	no number50	ma·ma	mama5ma0

Rules for placing the tone mark

Briefly, the tone mark should always be placed by the order--'a','o','e','i','u','ü', with the only exception being 'iu', where the tone mark is placed on the 'u' instead. Pinyin tone marks appear primarily above the nucleus of the syllable, for example as in ''kuài,'' where ''k'' is the initial, ''u'' the medial, ''a'' the nucleus, and ''i'' the coda. The exception is syllabic nasals like /''m''/, where the nucleus of the syllable is a consonant, the diacritic will be carried by a written dummy vowel.

When the nucleus is /ə/ (written ''e'' or ''o''), and there is both a medial and a coda, the nucleus may be dropped from writing. In this case, when the coda is a consonant ''n'' or ''ng,'' the only vowel left is the medial ''i, u,'' or ''ü,'' and so this takes the diacritic. However, when the coda is a vowel, it is the coda rather than the medial which takes the diacritic in the absence of a written nucleus. This occurs with syllables ending in ''-ui'' (from ''wei'': (wèi → -uì) and in ''-iu'' (from ''you: yòu → -iù.'') That is, in the absence of a written nucleus the finals have priority for receiving the tone marker, as long as they are vowels: if not, the medial takes the diacritic.

An algorithm to find the correct vowel letter (when there is more than one) is as follows:

# If there is an "a" or an "e", it will take the tone mark. # If there is an "ou", then the "o" takes the tone mark. # Otherwise, the second vowel takes the tone mark.

Worded differently, # If there is an "a", "e", or "o", it will take the tone mark; in the case of "ao", the mark goes on the "a". # Otherwise, the vowels are "-iu" or "-ui", in which case the second vowel takes the tone mark.

If the tone is written over an ''i'', the tittle above the ''i'' is omitted, as in ''yī.''

Phonological intuition

The placement of the tone marker, when more than one of the written letters ''a, e, i, o,'' and ''u'' appears, can also be inferred from the nature of the vowel sound in the medial and final. The rule is that the tone marker goes on the spelled vowel that is not a (near-)semi-vowel. The exception is that, for triphthongs that are spelled with only two vowel letters, both of which are the semi-vowels, the tone marker goes on the second spelled vowel.

Specifically, if the spelling of a diphthong begins with ''i'' (as in ''ia'') or ''u'' (as in ''ua''), which here serves as a near-semi-vowel, this letter does not take the tone marker. Likewise, if the spelling of a diphthong ends with ''o'' or ''u'' representing a near-semi-vowel (as in ''ao'' or ''ou''), this letter does not receive a tone marker. In a triphthong spelled with three of ''a, e, i, o,'' and ''u'' (with ''i'' or ''u'' replaced by ''y'' or ''w'' at the start of a syllable), the first and third letters coincide with near-semi-vowels and hence do not receive the tone marker (as in ''iao'' or ''uai'' or ''iou''). But if no letter is written to represent a triphthong's middle (non-semi-vowel) sound (as in ''ui'' or ''iu''), then the tone marker goes on the final (second) vowel letter.

Using tone colors

In addition to tone number and mark, tone color has been suggested as a visual aid for learning. Although there are no formal standards, the de facto standard has been to use red (tone 1), orange (tone 2), green (tone 3), blue (tone 4) and black (tone 5).

The character "ü"

A trema 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'' (e.g. 驴/驢 donkey) from the back high rounded vowel in ''lu'' (e.g. 炉/爐 oven). Tonal markers are added on top of the trema, 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 trema to distinguish between ''chü'' (pinyin ''ju'') and ''chu'' (pinyin ''zhu''), this ambiguity cannot 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 a trema (diacritic).

Many fonts or output methods do not support a trema for ''ü'' or cannot place tone marks on top of ''ü''. Likewise, using ''ü'' in input methods is difficult because it is not present as a simple key on many keyboard layouts. For these reasons ''v'' is sometimes used instead by convention. For example, it is common for cellphones to use ''v'' instead of ''ü''. Additionally, some stores in China use ''v'' instead of ''ü'' in the transliteration of their names. Occasionally, ''uu'' (double ''u''), ''u:'' (''u'' followed by a colon) or ''U'' (capital ''u'') is used in its place.

Although ''nüe'' written as ''nue'', and ''lüe'' written as ''lue'' are not ambiguous, ''nue'' or ''lue'' are not correct according the rules; ''nüe'' and ''lüe'' should be used instead. However, some Chinese input methods (e.g. Microsoft Pinyin IME) support both ''nve''/''lve'' (typing ''v'' for ''ü'') and ''nue''/''lue''.

Note: in the case of "Lu'an city六安市", (pinyin: Liù ān) the spelling is Lu'an using a local dialect.

Pinyin in Taiwan

Taiwan (Republic of China) adopted ''Tongyong pinyin,'' a modification of ''Hanyu pinyin,'' as the official romanization system on the national level between October 2002 and January 2009, when it switched to ''Hanyu pinyin''. ''Tongyong pinyin'' ("official phonetic"), a variant of Pinyin developed in Taiwan, was designed to romanize languages and dialects spoken on the island in addition to Mandarin Chinese. The Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) resisted its adoption, preferring the ''Hanyu pinyin'' system used in China and in general use internationally. Romanization preferences quickly became associated with issues of national identity. Preferences split along party lines: the Kuomintang and its affiliated parties in the pan-blue coalition supported the use of Hanyu Pinyin while the Democratic Progressive Party and its affiliated parties in the pan-green coalition favored the use of Tongyong Pinyin.

''Tongyong pinyin'' was made the official system in an administrative order that allowed its adoption by local governments to be voluntary. A few localities with governments controlled by the Kuomintang (KMT), most notably Taipei, Hsinchu, and Kinmen County, overrode the order and converted to ''Hanyu pinyin'' before the January 1, 2009 national-level switch, though with a slightly different capitalization convention than mainland China. Most areas of Taiwan adopted Tongyong Pinyin, consistent with the national policy. Many street signs in Taiwan today still display ''Tongyong pinyin'' but some, especially in northern Taiwan, display ''Hanyu pinyin.'' It is still not unusual to see spellings on street signs and buildings derived from the older Wade-Giles, MPS2 and other systems.

The adoption of ''Hanyu pinyin'' as the official romanization system in Taiwan does not preclude the official retention of earlier spellings. International familiarity has led to the retention of the spelling ''Taipei'' ("Taibei" in Pinyin systems) and even to its continuation in the name of New Taipei, a municipality created in 2010. Personal names on Taiwanese passports honor the choices of Taiwanese citizens, who often prefer the Wade-Giles romanization of their personal names. Transition to Hanyu pinyin in official use is also necessarily gradual. Universities and other government entities retain earlier spellings in long-established names, budget restraints preclude widespread replacement of signage and stationery in every area, and questions remain about the ability of the national government to enforce the standard island-wide. Primary education in Taiwan continues to teach pronunciation using ''zhuyin'' (MPS or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols).

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. This has drawn some criticism as it may lead to confusion when uninformed speakers apply either native or English assumed pronunciations to words. However this is not a specific problem of pinyin, since many languages that use the Latin alphabet natively assign different values to the same letters.

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.

Chart of comparison with other Romanizations

Computer input systems

Simple computer systems, able to display only 7-bit ASCII text (essentially the 26 Latin letters, 10 digits and punctuation marks), long provided a 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.

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-Han languages like Mongolian, Uyghur, and Tibetan are also officially transcribed using pinyin. The pinyin letters (26 Roman letters, ü, ê) are used to approximate the non-Han 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:

日喀則 Ürümqi Lhasa Hohhot Golmud

Customary !! Official (pinyin for local name)!!Traditional Chinese name!! Simplified Chinese name!!Pinyin for Chinese name
Shigatse	Xigazê	|	日喀则	Rìkāzé
Urumchi	|	烏魯木齊	乌鲁木齐	Wūlǔmùqí
Lhasa	|	拉薩	拉萨	Lāsà
Hohhot	|	呼和浩特	呼和浩特	Hūhéhàotè
Golmud	|	格爾木	格尔木	Gé'ěrmù

''Tongyong pinyin'' was developed in Taiwan for use in rendering not only Mandarin Chinese, but other languages and dialects spoken on the island such as Taiwanese, Hakka and aboriginal languages.

See also

Bopomofo

Chinese Postal Map Romanization

Combining diacritic marks

Erhua (儿化)

Jyutping (most similar to IPA)

Pe̍h-ōe-jī

List of ISO transliterations

Pinyin method

Pinyin table

Romaji

Tibetan pinyin

Tone number

Tongyong pinyin

Wade–Giles

Simplified Wade

Legge romanization

References

Further reading

Yin Binyong 尹斌庸 and Mary Felley (1990). ''Chinese Romanization''. Pronunciation and Orthography (Hanyu pinyin he zhengcifa 汉语拼音和正词法). Beijing: Sinolingua. ISBN 7-80052-148-6 / ISBN 0-8351-1930-0.

Gao, J. K. (2005). ''Pinyin shorthand: a bilingual handbook = [Pinyin su ji fa]''. Dallas, TX: Jack Sun. ISBN 1-59971-251-2

Kimball, R. L. (1988). ''Quick reference Chinese: a practical guide to Mandarin for beginners and travelers in English, Pinyin romanization, and Chinese characters''. San Francisco, CA: China Books & Periodicals. ISBN 0-8351-2036-8

Wu, C.-j. (1979). ''The Pinyin Chinese–English dictionary''. Hong Kong: Commercial Press. ISBN 0-471-27557-3

External links

Free Pinyin Tutorial (Chinese & Beyond)

Basic Rules for Hanyu Pinyin Orthography (National Standard of the People's Republic of China (ICS 01.140.10), 1996)

Interactive Pinyin Table

Standard Mandarin Pinyin Chart

pinyinAID

New Edition Hanyu Pinyin Syllable Table

Basic Rules of Hanyu Pinyin Orthography by Zhou Youguang (Pinyin.info)

Table of Combinations of Initials and Finals (Pinyin.info)

Chinese text annotation

Free Chinese Pronunciation Online

Pinyin Listening Test for 4 Tones

Pinyin Tone Recognition Test

Pinyin audio of Google Translate (mp3 files) 1243 different syllables and tones

Category:ISO standards Category:Chinese romanization Category:Phonetic alphabets Category:Chinese words and phrases Category:Mandarin words and phrases Category:Phonetic guides Category:Ruby characters

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Coordinates	50°8′″N19°24′″N
name	Michael Wong
chinesename	王光良
pinyinchinesename	Wáng Guāngliáng
ancestry	Chaozhou, Guangdong, China
origin	Malaysia
birth date	August 30, 1970
birth place	Perak, Malaysia
othername	Guang Liang (光良)
occupation	Singer
genre	Mandopop
instrument	Piano
label	Seed Music (2005–present)Rock Records (1995–2005) Amusic (HK; 2005–present)
yearsactive	1995–present
associatedact	Michael & Victor
website	www.michael4u.com
awards	}}

Michael Wong Kong Leong (), born August 30, 1970, is a Malaysian Chinese singer and composer. Wong began his singing career in a duo with Victor Wong. The pair had attained notable success in Taiwan, but in a mutual agreement the two split in 2000. Wong has released five solo albums, the third being his breakthrough album ''Fairy Tale''. He also enjoys success as an actor in Chinese dramas and movies.

Biography

Born in Perak, Malaysia to a Hakka family of six as the third child amidst two older brothers (2nd oldest brother Peter Wong works in New Zealand as an Internal Auditor) and one younger sister, the first step of Michael Wong's journey in the world of music began when his parents invested into a piano (a semitone lower) for him and his younger sister. Wong was ten years old at the time. He then began to accompany his six year-old sister to attend piano lessons together. He has practiced the piano for seven years since then.

Wong, as a devout Catholic, often sang in the church choir during his school days and was once a choir teacher at a church. Graduating from Sam Tet School in Ipoh, Wong often participated in musical performances in school and has been writing his own songs since secondary school. After he moved to Kuala Lumpur to pursue a course in computer engineering, his interest in the world of music and music composition began to grow.

Wu Yin Liang Pin (無印良品)

Entering from up to 30 singing competitions in town in a single year, where he managed to surface as the winner several times, were also the stepping stones to his successful singing career today. Finally noticed by Asia Pacific Music in the Pioneer karaoke contest, he started to learn Audio Engineering at Ocean Institute Of Audio Engineering during his contract with Asia Pacific Music as a recording artist. After his graduation, Michael produced his first album with two other college mates, Chan and Tan. With the joining of Victor Wong as a singer during that period, they submitted the album, with the theme song written by Michael, "掌心“ (The Palm) to Rock Records, which in turn, signed them up almost immediately. They then formed a duo group more commonly known in Malaysia as Michael & Victor or Guang Liang Pin Guan (光良品冠). In Taiwan and China, they were mostly known as Wu Yin Liang Pin (無印良品), a name given by their record label in Taiwan.

The split

The duo then arguably became the first Malaysians to attain much success in the music scene in Taiwan. Their albums managed to hit the top notch both locally and in Taiwan as their debut album went platinum in both Malaysia and Taiwan. After a few splendid and successful years together as a duo in the Chinese music scene, during which the pair bagged countless awards for their success, Michael and Victor then decided it was time to part cordially and go their own ways in the music scene as solo singers in year 2000.

Solo career

Not long after the announcement, Wong worked hard to compose and write new songs for his new solo album, ''Michael's First Album'' (第一次個人創作專輯; ''Dì Yī Cì Gè Rén Chuàng Zuò Zhuān Jí''), which performed above expectation. Although Wong's company promptly decided that he should produce his first solo album on his own, he did not agree straight away. This is because he was not confident that he was skillful enough to produce one whole album all by himself. However, after much contemplating, Wong finally accepted the challenge and was successful in breaking away from the Michael & Victor mould. Other than working on his own album, Wong also found time to co-produce other singers' albums like Rene Liu and Fish Leong.

Wong released his second album, ''Ray of Light'' (光芒; ''Guāng Máng''), in November 2002. It then became the number one album, in sales, in Taiwan.

''Fairy Tale''

After releasing two solo albums on his own, Wong's fans had to wait another two years before he finally launched his much-anticipated album, ''Fairytale'' (Tong Hua). The first single from this album, "Fairy Tale," Wong wrote and composed by himself. Wong, who is more of a composer and hardly wrote lyrics, asked about 30 lyricists for suggestions for this particular song. After finally adding a finishing touch to the song with lyrics he wrote himself, he then left it to be arranged and produced by the experienced Japanese producer Taichi Nakamura. After rejecting the first few songs he short-listed himself for the album with his sense of perfection, Wong eventually re-selected some songs himself and finally rooted for his ten favourite songs to be cut into the album, of which six were co-written by himself. His two years of hard work finally paid off when this album immediately attained success, and is critically acclaimed to be Wong's best-selling album yet.

"Fairy Tale" has proved to be his strongest single yet by shooting up to No. 1 immediately after it was released in January 2005, making it to the top of the download counter Baidu 500 for 15 weeks as Asia was swept by the "Fairy Tale Tornado". The single is arguably the most successful Chinese language song in the 21st Century. As of 2007 it is still among the top in the karaoke charts.

New contracts

Michael Wong's contract with Rock Records ended on 31 Dec 2004 but he decided to continue to promote for the album, ''Fairy Tale'', released Jan 2005. After the promotion period finished, Wong has made the biggest decision in his singing career by announcing his departure from his long time recording company, Rock Records, in July 2005. After 10 years being contracted with Rock Records, Wong is now officially signed to Amusic. The reason of his departure from Rock Records was because Rock Records believed that since his music was so simple, it was not music. Thus, they ignored him. On TV, someone had claimed that Wong's music was not music due to its simplicity, causing the singer grief. Wong's unstable relationship with Rock Records has encouraged his decision to leave for Amusic. When pressed for comments, Wong firmly and merely stated that he thanked Rock Records for giving him his big break.

Acting career

His talents and works in the music world aside, Wong also happens to be a worthy actor. Acting alongside Taiwanese singer Richie Ren, fellow Malaysian singer, Ah Niu and famous Cantonese singer/actress, Sammi Cheng, Wong made his debut in the big screen in movie ''Summer Holiday'' in year 2000. Next to that, Wong also acted in several TV drama series in Taiwan, such as ''White Romance'' (starring alongside Karena Lam), ''Wintry Night 2'', and several more. Besides that, Wong also did a stunning act in Taiwanese director Su Chaopin's debut comedy movie, ''BTS''. Besides movies and drama series, Wong also starred in a musical stage drama in Taiwan, ''Mr. Wing'', in August 2005.

''Commitment''

He has released his new fourth album, entitled 《約定》(Yue Ding / ''Commitment''), which sold 1.5 million copies in less than one month. This is a best collection of many of his past works. There would be a total of approximately 17 tracks on this album. Three self-penned new songs are featured in this new album, which are titled 《約定》("Commitment"), 《都是你》(Dou Shi Ni / "It's You") and 《擁抱我》(Yong Bao Wo / "Embrace Me"). The rest of the album will be filled with songs which he wrote for other singers like 《勇氣》[(Yong Qi / "Courage")-original singer: Fish Leong)], 《我等你》[(Wo Deng Ni / "I'm Waiting For You")-original singer: Rene Liu)] and 《戀》[(Lian / "Love")-original singer: Angelica Lee)]. He also included the songs he wrote and sang when he was still part of the duo Michael and Victor.

Owing to the overwhelming success of Tong Hua, some critics have expressed their concerns that Tong Hua might only be Wong's one-hit-wonder. His critics were proven wrong as the sales of his fourth album, Yue Ding, exceeded expectations by selling more than a million copies worldwide in a month's time. Wong's fanbase has grown tremendously and has gained much popularity globally. His success as a singer and songwriter has earned him countless awards from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Malaysia.

Further success

Gaining more and more recognition globally, Wong was recently appointed as Tourism Malaysia's ambassador. Earlier before that, Wong's participation in A Music records label in Hong Kong has also gained him more recognition in Asia. He appeared as a guest at the concert of famous Cantonese singer Leon Lai in October 2005.

On June 6, 2006, Wong made it into the Malaysia Book of Records as the Malaysian Chinese Male Composer with the highest number of awards and also for The Best Selling Chinese Album (Tong Hua). Wong has gathered 44 awards, 23 of them for his hit song Tong Hua.

Wong has also managed to make it to the nominees' list of the 17th Golden Melody Awards, Taiwan’s equivalent of the Grammys. Wong was holding up against fellow Taiwan-based Malaysian singer Penny Tai and other musical talents like Hu Defu, Chen Xiaoxia, and Yu Yang in the Best Composer Category. Although the award went to fellow Malaysian singer Penny Tai, Wong expresses that he feels very grateful and lucky to be nominated in this prestigious award ceremony.

Commitment: Fulfilled

In the past, Wong always felt puzzled and uncertain whenever his fans urged him with the question, "When are you finally having a concert?" Due to circumstances in the past, Wong had never held his own solo concert before and always tried to soothe his fans by making promises to them that he will, one day, finally stage his own solo concert some time soon. And therefore, in year 2006, he finally got the chance to fulfill the commitment between him and his fans.

With just half a year in the Hong Kong music scene, Wong, who gained more recognition in Hong Kong, was given a golden opportunity to stage his own solo concert. Not only that it was his first time, but it was also to be held in the famous Hong Kong Coliseum where almost every Chinese singer dreams to stage their own concert. Apparently, he is the first Malaysian singer to do so. Although he was worried about the turn up that night, Wong's anxiety was unfounded because his concert tickets were sold out after only being available for purchase for 5 days. Wong was deeply surprised and delighted and thanked his fans greatly for their utmost support to his music. Wong completed his much-anticipated first solo concert in the Hong Kong Coliseum on the 29th of March, and the success of the whole concert was undeniable. His concert was entitled "Michael's First Fairy Tale Concert 2006". Wong has managed to make his mark in everybody's heart with his love for music. After that, he would return to his homeland, Malaysia, in September, to stage a concert there as well.

His second concert, titled "Michael's Commitment Concert Malaysia 2006", was held on the 1st of September in the Putra Indoor Stadium in Malaysia. After about a few weeks of selling tickets, all were sold out. Due to the overwhelming response, Wong and his company decided to stage his concert there for two nights. Wong was very delighted and grateful that his fans were so supportive and stated that he hoped these two concerts would allow him to introduce his country, Malaysia, to his fans from other countries, playing the role as Tourism Malaysia's envoy. His two shows in Malaysia guaranteed a fun-filled night where fans enjoyed Wong's soothing, self-written songs.

Wong released a compilation called ''Michael 1996-2006 the greatest hits'' on May 16, 2007.

On November 9, 2007, Wong released his 5th solo studio album, ''Never Apart''.

31 July 2009 he released his ''First Digital Single'' which contained 2 Cantonese songs called: 店小二 (Dian Xiao Er) and 清水 (Qing Shui). 右手邊 (You Shou Bian) and 美好時光 (Mei Hao Shi Guang) where also included.

It's A Small World

In 2008, he was asked to perform the Mandarin version of "It's A Small World" at the Grand Opening of ''It's A Small World'' in ''Hong Kong Disneyland'', but after strong demand from the crowd, sang "Tong Hua" instead.

Discography

Solo Albums

''Michael's First Album'' (第一次個人創作專輯; ''Dì Yī Cì Gè Rén Chuàng Zuò Zhuān Jí'') - May 10, 2001

''Ray of Light'' (光芒; ''Guāng Máng'') - November 8, 2002

''Fairy Tale'' (童話; ''Tóng Huà'') - January 21, 2005

''Commitment'' (約定; ''Yuē Dìng'') - March 3, 2006

''Never Apart'' (不會分離; ''Bú Huì Fēn Lí'') - November 9, 2007

''Right Hand Side EP'' (右手邊; ''Yòu Shǒu Biān'') - September 19, 2008

''First Digital Single'' - July 31, 2009

''So Naive '' (太天真; ''(Tai Tian Zhen '') - September 9, 2010

Other

I Believe (我要跟隨祂; Wǒ Yào Gēn Suí Tā), compilation of Christian music - Released 1994

The World Shines Because of Love (世界因愛發光; ''Shì Jiè Yīn Ài Fā Guāng''), EP album - December 1997

"Michael 1996-2006 the greatest hits'' - May 16, 2007

Filmography

Movies

The Threesome : The Movie (三人行音樂電影; ''Sān Rén Xíng Yin Yuè Diàn Ying'') - 1998

Summer Holiday (夏日麼麼茶; ''Xià Rì Me Me Chá'')- 2000

BTS (愛情靈藥; ''Ài Qíng Líng Yào'') - 2001

Like A Slave (英勇戰士俏姑娘; ''Yīng Yǒng Shì Zhan Shì Qiào Gū Niáng'') - 2005

Purple Mirage(紫色梦幻;"Zǐ Sè Mèng Huàn") - 2006

Dramas

White Love (白色戀曲; ''Báisè Liàn Qu'') - 2001

A Change of Fate (時來運轉; ''Shí Lái Yùn Zhuan'') - 2001

Good Luck,Angel (王牌天使; ''Wáng Pái Tiān Shi'') - 2003

Love Storm (狂愛龍捲風; ''Kuáng Ài Lóng Juǎn Fēng'') - 2003

Wintry Night 2 (寒夜續曲; ''Hán Yè Xù Qu'') - 2003

Love.18 - 2008

Musical Stage Drama :

Mr. Wing ~ a romantic rhapsody (幸運兒; ''Xìng Yùn Ér'') - 2005

References

External links

Official site

Michael Wong at Rock Records Japan

Michael Wong's Lyrics and Album lists

Michael Wong Album Lyrics

Category:1970 births Category:Living people

Category: Mandopop singers

Category:Hakka people

de:Michael Wong es:Michael Wong id:Michael Wong (penyanyi) nah:Wáng Guāngliáng ja:光良 no:Michael Wong pt:Guang Liang zh:光良