Spelling Rules

Question 1

1

Answer 1

If there is no initial consonant before i, i is written as a semi-vowel, y. Thus ia, ie, iao, iu, ian, iang become ya, ye, yao, you (note that the o cannot be omitted here: iu = iou), yan, yang,. Before in and ing, add y, e.g., yin and ying.

Question 2

2

Answer 2

if there is no initial consonant before ü, add a y and drop the umlaut: yu, yuan, yue, yun.

Question 3

3

Answer 3

u becomes w if it is not preceded by an initial, e.g., wa, wai, wan, wang, wei, wen, weng, wo,. u by itself becomes wu, and ui (uei) is spelled as “wei” when it stands as an independent syllable

Question 4

4

Answer 4

ueng is written as ong if preceded by an initial, e.g. tong, dong, nong, long. Without an initial, it is weng (spelling rule 3: u becomes w if it is not preceded by an initial)

Question 5

5

Answer 5

In order to avoid confusion, an apostrophe is used to separate two syllables with connecting vowels, e.g. nǚ’ér (daughter) and the city Xī’ān (nǚ and ér, Xī and ān are separate syllables). Sometimes an apostrophe is also needed when there are confusions even if the two syllables are not connected by vowels, e.g. fáng’ài (to inder) and fāng’àn (plan, scheme).