Romanization is the representation of the pronunciation of languages using the Latin alphabet. The romanization of Mandarin Chinese, or Mandarin romanization, is the use of the Latin alphabet to write Chinese.
Chinese is a tonal language with a logographic script; its characters do not represent phonemes directly. The two main systems used by English speakers are Pinyin (拼音) and Wade-Giles (韦氏拼音).
ALA-LC rules are standards for romanization, or the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin alphabet developed by American Library Association - Library of Congress. ALA-LC romanization of ideographic characters used for the Chinese language follows the principles of the Pinyin ("spell sound") system.
Rules:
Separate the romanization of each Chinese character with a space.
Connection of syllables
Capitalization
Wade–Giles was a common system of transcription in the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century, used in several standard reference books and in all books about China published in Western countries before 1979. In mainland China, it has been entirely replaced by the pinyin system, which was developed by the Chinese government and approved during 1958. Outside mainland China, it has mostly been replaced by the pinyin system but remains common in history books, particularly those about Imperial China. Additionally, its legacy can be felt in the common English names of certain individuals and locations (e.g. Mao Tse-tung, Peking).
Hanyu Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into Latin script in the People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan), Singapore, and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into computers. Although Pinyin was adopted as the official standard in Taiwan in 2009, it is generally referred to as the New Phonetic System and is used for romanization alone rather than for educational and computer input purposes.
Beginning with the normalization of Sino-American diplomatic relations in 1979, Pinyin began to gain popularity in the United States. Now it is the most common system used in both the mass media and scholarship.