Wade–Giles

Initials

Instead of ts, tsʻ and s, Wade–Giles writes tz, tzʻ and ss before ŭ (see below).

Finals

		Coda
		∅			/i/		/u/		/n/		/ŋ/			/ɻ/
Medial	∅	ih/ŭ [ɨ] ㄭ -i	ê/o [ɤ] ㄜ e	a [a] ㄚ a	ei [ei] ㄟ ei	ai [ai] ㄞ ai	ou [ou] ㄡ ou	ao [au] ㄠ ao	ên [ən] ㄣ en	an [an] ㄢ an	ung [ʊŋ] ㄨㄥ ong	êng [əŋ] ㄥ eng	ang [aŋ] ㄤ ang	êrh [aɚ̯] ㄦ er
	/j/	i [i] ㄧ i	ieh [je] ㄧㄝ ie	ia [ja] ㄧㄚ ia			iu [jou] ㄧㄡ iu	iao [jau] ㄧㄠ iao	in [in] ㄧㄣ in	ien [jɛn] ㄧㄢ ian	iung [jʊŋ] ㄩㄥ iong	ing [iŋ] ㄧㄥ ing	iang [jaŋ] ㄧㄤ iang
	/w/	u [u] ㄨ u	o/uo [wo] ㄛ/ㄨㄛ o/uo	ua [wa] ㄨㄚ ua	ui/uei [wei] ㄨㄟ ui	uai [wai] ㄨㄞ uai			un [wən] ㄨㄣ un	uan [wan] ㄨㄢ uan			uang [waŋ] ㄨㄤ uang
	/ɥ/	ü [y] ㄩ ü	üeh [ɥe] ㄩㄝ üe						ün [yn] ㄩㄣ ün	üan [ɥɛn] ㄩㄢ üan

Wade–Giles writes -uei after kʻ and k, otherwise -ui: kʻuei, kuei, hui, shui, chʻui.

It writes [-ɤ] as -o after kʻ, k and h, otherwise -ê: kʻo, ko, ho, shê, chʻê. When [ɤ] forms a syllable on its own, it is written ê or o depending on the character.

Wade–Giles writes [-wo] as -uo after kʻ, k, h and sh, otherwise -o: kʻuo, kuo, huo, shuo, chʻo.

For -ih and -ŭ, see below.

Giles's A Chinese-English Dictionary also includes the syllables chio, chʻio, hsio, yo, which are now pronounced like chüeh, chʻüeh, hsüeh, yüeh.

Syllables that begin with a medial

Wade–Giles writes the syllable [i] as i or yi depending on the character.

Consonants and initial symbols

A feature of the Wade–Giles system is the representation of the unaspirated-aspirated stop consonant pairs using left apostrophes: p, pʻ, t, tʻ, k, kʻ, ch, chʻ. The use of apostrophes preserves b, d, g, and j for the romanization of Chinese varieties containing voiced consonants, such as Shanghainese (which has a full set of voiced consonants) and Min Nan (Hō-ló-oē) whose century-old Pe̍h-ōe-jī (POJ, often called Missionary Romanization) is similar to Wade–Giles. POJ, Legge romanization, Simplified Wade, and EFEO Chinese transcription use the letter ⟨h⟩ instead of an apostrophe to indicate aspiration (this is similar to the obsolete IPA convention before the revisions of the 1970s). The convention of an apostrophe or ⟨h⟩ to denote aspiration is also found in romanizations of other Asian languages, such as McCune–Reischauer for Korean and ISO 11940 for Thai.

People unfamiliar with Wade–Giles often ignore the apostrophes, sometimes omitting them when copying texts, unaware that they represent vital information. Hànyǔ Pīnyīn addresses this issue by employing the Latin letters customarily used for voiced stops, unneeded in Mandarin, to represent the unaspirated stops: b, p, d, t, g, k, j, q, zh, ch.

Partly because of the popular omission of the apostrophe, the four sounds represented in Hànyǔ Pīnyīn by j, q, zh, and ch often all become ch, including in many proper names. However, if the apostrophes are kept, the system reveals a symmetry that leaves no overlap:

• The non-retroflex ch (Pīnyīn j) and chʻ (Pīnyīn q) are always before either i or ü.
• The retroflex ch (Pīnyīn zh) and chʻ (Pīnyīn ch) are always before a, ê, ih, o, or u.

Vowels and final symbols

Tones

Tones are indicated in Wade–Giles using superscript numbers (1–4) placed after the syllable. This contrasts with the use of diacritics to represent the tones in Pīnyīn. For example, the Pīnyīn qiàn (fourth tone) has the Wade–Giles equivalent chʻien⁴.

Punctuation

Wade–Giles uses hyphens to separate all syllables within a word (whereas Pīnyīn separates syllables only in specially defined cases, using hyphens or right apostrophes as appropriate).

If a syllable is not the first in a word, its first letter is not capitalized, even if it is part of a proper noun. The use of apostrophes, hyphens, and capitalization is frequently not observed in place names and personal names. For example, the majority of overseas Taiwanese write their given names like "Tai Lun" or "Tai-Lun", whereas the Wade–Giles is actually "Tai-lun". (See also Chinese name.)

Pīnyīn

• Wade–Giles chose the French-like j (implying a sound like IPA's [ʒ]) to represent a Northern Mandarin pronunciation of what is represented as r in Pīnyīn.
• Ü always has an umlaut above, while Pīnyīn only employs it in the cases of nü, nüe, lü, lüe and lüan, while leaving it out after j, q, x and y as a simplification because u cannot otherwise appear after those letters. Because yü (as in 玉 "jade") must have an umlaut in Wade–Giles, the umlaut-less yu in Wade–Giles is freed up for what corresponds to you (有) in Pinyin.
• The Pīnyīn cluster -ong is -ung in Wade–Giles. (Compare kung¹-fu to gōngfu as an example.)
• After a consonant, both Wade–Giles and Pīnyīn use -iu and -un instead of the complete syllables: -iou and -uên/-uen.

Chart

Note: In Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, the so-called neutral tone is written leaving the syllable with no diacritic mark at all. In Tongyòng Pinyin, a ring is written over the vowel.

Mathews

The Romanization system used in the 1943 edition of Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary differs from Wade–Giles in the following ways:^[5]

• It uses the right apostrophe: pʼ, tʼ, kʼ, chʼ, tsʼ, tzʼŭ; while Wade–Giles uses the left apostrophe, similar to the aspiration diacritic used in the International Phonetic Alphabet before the revisions of the 1970s: pʻ, tʻ, kʻ, chʻ, tsʻ, tzʻŭ.
• It consistently uses i for the syllable [i], while Wade–Giles uses i or yi depending on the character.
• It uses o for the syllable [ɤ], while Wade–Giles uses ê or o depending on the character.
• It offers the choice between ssŭ and szŭ, while Wade–Giles requires ssŭ.
• It does not use the spellings chio, chʻio, hsio, yo, replacing them with chüeh, chʻüeh, hsüeh, yüeh in accordance with their modern pronunciations.
• It uses an underscored ³ to denote a second tone which comes from an original third tone, but only if the following syllable has the neutral tone and the tone sandhi is therefore not predictable: hsiao³•chieh.
• It denotes the neutral tone by placing a dot (if the neutral tone is compulsory) or a circle (if the neutral tone is optional) before the syllable. The dot or circle replaces the hyphen.