Wade–Giles

Wade–Giles (simplified Chinese: 威妥玛拼音 or 韦氏拼音; traditional Chinese: 威妥瑪拼音; pinyin: wēituǒmǎ pīnyīn), sometimes abbreviated Wade, is a romanization system for Chinese that is based on the form of Mandarin used in Beijing. The system was produced by Thomas Wade in the mid-19th century and was fully developed in Herbert Giles's 1892 Chinese-English dictionary.

Wade-Giles was the main transliteration system in the English-speaking world for much of the 20th century. It is used in several standard reference books and in all books about China that were published before 1979. It replaced the Nanjing-based romanization systems that was common until the late 19th century. Wade-Giles has been replaced by pinyin but remains commonly used in Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China.

One well-known feature of Wade-Giles is that it uses the apostrophe to mark aspirated consonants, or breathy consonants, as in Ancient Greek. For example, ping in pinyin would be written as p'ing in Wade-Giles, but bing in pinyin would be written as ping. Sounds are written that way because Chinese, unlike English, has no voiced stop consonants, fricatives, or affricates. Chinese distinguishes only aspirated and unaspirated sounds. Therefore, an apostrophe, instead of a different letter, is used.

However, the apostrophe was not understood well by people who do not know the Wade-Giles spelling and so many people would ignore the apostrophe when reading or copying Chinese words, which led many non-Chinese people to say Chinese words incorrectly, including Tao, tai chi, and kung fu. Wade-Giles spellings that ignore the apostrophe completely are called bastardized Wade-Giles.

Comparison chart

Vowels

IPA	ɑ	ɔ	ɤ	aɪ	eɪ	ɑʊ	ɤʊ	an	ən	ɑŋ	ɤŋ	ɑɻ	ʊŋ	ji	iɛ	iɤʊ	iɛn	jin	jiŋ
Pinyin	a	o	e	ai	ei	ao	ou	an	en	ang	eng	er	ong	yi	ye	you	yan	yin	ying
Tongyong Pinyin	a	o	e	ai	ei	ao	ou	an	en	ang	eng	er	ong	yi	ye	you	yan	yin	ying
Wade–Giles	a	o	o/ê	ai	ei	ao	ou	an	ên	ang	êng	êrh	ung	i	yeh	yu	yen	yin	ying
zhuyin	ㄚ	ㄛ	ㄜ	ㄞ	ㄟ	ㄠ	ㄡ	ㄢ	ㄣ	ㄤ	ㄥ	ㄦ	ㄨㄥ	ㄧ	ㄧㄝ	ㄧㄡ	ㄧㄢ	ㄧㄣ	ㄧㄥ
example	阿	哦	俄	艾	黑	凹	偶	安	恩	昂	冷	二	中	一	也	又	言	音	英

Vowels

IPA	wu	uɔ	ueɪ	uan	uən	uʊn	uɤŋ	uʊŋ	y	yɛ	yɛn	yn	yʊŋ
Pinyin	wu	wo	wei	wan	wen		weng		yu	yue	yuan	yun	yong
Tongyong Pinyin	wu	wo	wei	wan		wun		wong	yu	yue	yuan	yun	yong
Wade–Giles	wu	wo	wei	wan	wên		wêng		yü	yüeh	yüan	yün	yung
zhuyin	ㄨ	ㄨㄛ	ㄨㄟ	ㄨㄢ	ㄨㄣ		ㄨㄥ		ㄩ	ㄩㄝ	ㄩㄢ	ㄩㄣ	ㄩㄥ
example	五	我	位	完	文	文	翁	翁	玉	月	元	云	用

Consonants

IPA	p	pʰ	m	fəŋ	fʊŋ	tiou	tuei	tʰ	ny	ly	kəɻ	kʰ	xə	tɕiɛn	tɕyʊŋ	tɕʰɪn	ɕyɛn
Pinyin	b	p	m	feng		diu	dui	t	nü	lü	ger	k	he	jian	jiong	qin	xuan
Tongyong Pinyin	b	p	m		fong	diou	duei	t	nyu	lyu	ger	k	he	jian	jyong	cin	syuan
Wade–Giles	p	p'	m	fêng		tiu	tui	t'	nü	lü	kêrh	k'	ho	chien	chiung	ch'in	hsüan
zhuyin	ㄅ	ㄆ	ㄇ	ㄈㄥ		ㄉㄧㄡ	ㄉㄨㄟ	ㄊ	ㄋㄩ	ㄌㄩ	ㄍㄜㄦ	ㄎ	ㄏㄜ	ㄐㄧㄢ	ㄐㄩㄥ	ㄑㄧㄣ	ㄒㄩㄢ
example	玻	婆	末	封	封	丟	兌	特	女	旅	歌儿	可	何	件	窘	秦	宣

Consonants

IPA	tʂə	tʂɚ	tʂʰə	tʂʰɚ	ʂə	ʂɚ	ʐə	ʐɚ	tsə	tsuɔ	tsɨ	tsʰə	tsʰɨ	sə	sɨ
Pinyin	zhe	zhi	che	chi	she	shi	re	ri	ze	zuo	zi	ce	ci	se	si
Tongyong Pinyin	jhe	jhih	che	chih	she	shih	re	rih	ze	zuo	zih	ce	cih	se	sih
Wade–Giles	chê	chih	ch'ê	ch'ih	shê	shih	jê	jih	tsê	tso	tzŭ	ts'ê	tz'ŭ	sê	szŭ
zhuyin	ㄓㄜ	ㄓ	ㄔㄜ	ㄔ	ㄕㄜ	ㄕ	ㄖㄜ	ㄖ	ㄗㄜ	ㄗㄨㄛ	ㄗ	ㄘㄜ	ㄘ	ㄙㄜ	ㄙ
example	哲	之	扯	赤	社	是	惹	日	仄	左	字	策	次	色	斯

Tones

IPA	ma˥˥	ma˧˥	ma˨˩˦	ma˥˩
Pinyin	mā	má	mă	mà
Tongyong Pinyin	ma	maˊ	maˇ	maˋ
Wade–Giles	ma1	ma2	ma3	ma4
zhuyin	ㄇㄚ	ㄇㄚˊ	ㄇㄚˇ	ㄇㄚˋ
example (traditional/simplfied)	媽/妈	麻/麻	馬/马	罵/骂

Sample sentences of Wade-Giles

Here are sample sentences written in Chinese characters, pinyin, and Wade-Giles with English translations:

Chinese characters	你是北京人还是上海人？
Pinyin	Nǐ shì Běijīng rén háishì Shànghǎi rén?
Wade-Giles	Ni3 shih4 Pei3ching1jên2 hai2shih4 Shang4hai3jên2?
English	Are you Pekingese or Shanghainese?

Chinese characters	唐鑫鑫很喜欢去青岛喝啤酒。
Pinyin	Táng Xīnxīn hěn xǐhuān qù Qīngdǎo hē píjiǔ.
Wade-Giles	T'ang2 Hsin1hsin1 hên3 hsi3huan1 ch‘ü4 Ch'ing1tao3 ho1 p'i2chiu3.
English	Tang Xinxin likes to go to Qingdao to drink beer.

Chinese characters	周长平要做太极,但是他不要看电影。
Pinyin	Zhōu Chángpíng yào zuò tàijí, dànshì tā bùyào kàn diànyǐng.
Wade-Giles	Chou1 Ch'ang2p'ing2 yao4 tso4 t'ai4chi2, tan4shih4 t'a1 pu4yao4 k'an4 tien4ying3.
English	Zhou Changping wants to do tai chi, but he does not want to watch movies.

Other websites

• Chinese Romanization Converter - Convert between Hanyu Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and other known or (un-)common Romanization systems.
• Wade-Giles → Zhuyin → Pinyin conversion table Archived 2008-02-12 at the Wayback Machine
• Pinyin → Wade-Giles → Zhuyin conversion table Archived 2005-01-20 at the Wayback Machine
• Wade-Giles → Zhuyin → Pinyin → Word list Archived 2007-07-07 at the Wayback Machine
• A conversion table of Chinese provinces and cities from Wade-Giles to Pinyin
• Pinyin4j: Java library supporting Chinese to Wade-Giles
• Pronunciation Guide