Level 0#
Hey, a flower-like woman in Xi'an said: "I can swallow glass without harming my body".
Pure Chinese characters, only used as an example, meaningless,
And the following writing follows the current Chinese Pinyin Scheme (PDF).
Reference and thanks to Qiuwen Baike!
Level 1#
ei, hua er ban de nyu ren zai xi an shuo: "wo neng tun xia bo li er bu shang shen ti".
This is probably the most common way of manual conversion, mostly used in scenarios where only 26 Latin letters can be displayed.
In Chinese Pinyin, half-width Western punctuation marks are generally used.
Level 2#
éi, huā er bān de nǚ rén zài xī ān shuō: "wǒ néng tūn xià bō lí ér bù shāng shēn tǐ".
Marked with tones and using "ü"
Tones#
The tone symbols in Chinese Pinyin are written above the letters, without using methods such as changing the spelling (such as postal-style Pinyin) or adding symbols later (such as Zhuyin symbols) to mark the tones.
Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese has four tones and a neutral tone, and the neutral tone is generally not marked with a tone.
Most tools for converting Chinese characters to Pinyin have the function of marking tones.
It is also relatively easy to input tones on mobile devices.
On devices where it is difficult to input tones, sometimes numbers are added after the characters to indicate the tones, such as:
ei2, hua1 er2 ban1 de nü3 ren2 zai4 xi1 an1 shuo1: "wo3 neng2 tun1 xia4 bo1 li2 er2 bu4 shang1 shen1 ti3"
In some cases, the spelling may be changed to mark the tones, such as "陕西 Shaanxi" - "山西 Shanxi"
Nasal sounds
In addition, tone symbols can be directly marked on top of "m" and "n" to indicate nasal sounds, for example, ḿ, m̀, ń, ň, ǹ are used to spell the pronunciation of words such as "呒", "呣", "唔", "嗯". However, some characters are not included in Unicode and are rarely used in practice.
For example, the actual Pinyin of "嗯" is "ńɡ" rather than "éng", but the latter is usually used for convenience of input.
Writing "ü"#
When possible, it is preferred to use the "Ü" writing with two dots. In addition, there are these commonly used alternatives:
The standard usage is only: the "take off the hat" usage learned in childhood and using "yu" instead of "ü"
"u": Except after the initials "l" and "n", it can be abbreviated as "u"
"v": Because "ü" is inconvenient to input on mainstream American keyboards, "v" is used instead in Pinyin input methods. Due to input habits, this method is more commonly used among the general public.
"yu": The general writing in official documents, such as the surname "吕" is written as "Lyu" in passports.
Level 3#
Éi, huā er bān de nǚrén zài xī'ān shuō: "Wǒ néng tūn xià bōlí ér bù shāng shēntǐ".
Using capitalization at the beginning of sentences and word segmentation
Capitalization#
Generally, capitalization is used at the beginning of each sentence and at the beginning of proper nouns.
There are also usages such as capitalizing the first letter of each word, capitalizing the first letter of each noun, and capitalizing the first letter of each syllable, but these are rare and not standardized.
Word Segmentation#
In principle, Chinese Pinyin is spelled based on words, with spaces between each word.
For more details, please refer to: Basic Rules of Chinese Pinyin Orthography (PDF)
Syllable Separation Mark
Use "'" to separate syllables when it may cause confusion between syllables.
Used before syllables starting with "a, o, e"
Level 4#
Ê, huār bān de nǚrén zài xī'ān shuō: "Wǒ néng tūn xià bōlí ér bù shāng shēntǐ".
Using "ê" and erhua
Writing "ê"#
It is the Pinyin writing of "诶，欸",
In input methods, "ei" is used instead, and it is also spelled this way in some occasions.
Erhua#
When "儿" is used as an independent character, it is written as "er", and when used as an erhua, it is written as "r".
For example, "儿童" is spelled as "ertong", and "花儿" is spelled as "huar".
Level 5#
Ê, huār bān de nǚrén zài xī'ān ŝuō: "Wǒ néŋ tūn xià bōlí ér bù ŝāŋ ŝēntǐ".
When annotating Chinese characters with Pinyin, in order to make the spelling shorter, "ng" can be abbreviated as "ŋ", and "zh, sh, ch" can be abbreviated as "ẑ, ŝ, ĉ".
However, this abbreviated spelling was actually optimized for handwritten Latinization of Chinese characters at that time, and it is rarely used later due to inconvenient input.