Mandarin Chinese: spelling → sound

Every Mandarin syllable is (initial) + final + TONE, and pinyin spells it almost perfectly — once you know that the letters don't have their English values. b d g are unaspirated /p t k/ and p t k are aspirated /pʰ tʰ kʰ/; c is /t͡sʰ/, z is /t͡s/, q/j/x are the 'palatal' series (tongue flat behind the lower teeth), zh/ch/sh/r the 'retroflex' series (tongue curled back). The letter i after z/c/s and zh/ch/sh/r is not a vowel at all but a buzz on the consonant (zi, shi). u after j/q/x/y is really ü. The four tones — high level ˥, rising ˧˥, dip-rise ˨˩˦, falling ˥˩ — are not decoration: mā 妈 mother, má 麻 hemp, mǎ 马 horse, mà 骂 scold. A fifth 'neutral' tone is short and unmarked. Tracer: type pinyin with marks (hǎo) or numbers (hao3).

Trace a word

Every box is one rule firing. Hover a box (or open the table) to see why. Rules are applied in order, first match wins — that order is the spelling system. Type pinyin — with tone marks (nǐ hǎo) or numbers (ni3 hao3).

The rules, in order

83 rules. The left column is a pattern (regular expression) matched at the current position of the word; (?=…) looks ahead, (?<=…) looks behind, $ is the end of the word.