Chinese Pinyin

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 hùai, huài, or huaì? (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.