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Tone marks in Hanyu Pinyin always go over vowels, not consonants. But even those familiar with Hanyu Pinyin are often uncertain about which in a string of vowels takes the tone mark. If, for example, you are given huai4 -- is it hu?ai, hua?i, or hua¨¬ ? (Answer: the second choice.)
Fortunately there are no ambiguities to worry about, even where there are several vowels in a row. Various complicated rules explain the placement. Fortunately, in application they boil down to a few very simple guidelines:
- A and e trump all other vowels and always take the tone mark. There are no Mandarin syllables in Hanyu Pinyin that contain both a and e .
- In the combination ou , o takes the mark.
- In all other cases, the final vowel takes the mark.
The possible vowel combinations are listed below, with the vowel that receives the tone marked as second tone.
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a |
e |
i |
o |
u |
¨¹ |
| a |
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ái |
áo |
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| e |
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éi |
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| i |
iá, iáo |
ié |
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ió |
iú |
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| o |
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óu |
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| u |
uá, uái |
ué |
u¨ª |
uó |
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| ¨¹ |
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¨¹é |
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Note: Early versions of Hanyu Pinyin used e? . But since it never was combined with other vowels it is not included here. (It has since been supplanted by ei .)
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