Wade-Giles facts for kids

Wade-Giles (simplified Chinese: 威妥玛拼音 or 韦氏拼音; traditional Chinese: 威妥瑪拼音; pinyin: wēituǒmǎ pīnyīn), often called just Wade, is a way to write Chinese sounds using English letters. This system is based on the Mandarin Chinese spoken in Beijing. Thomas Francis Wade created it in the mid-19th century. Later, Herbert Giles fully developed it in his 1892 Chinese-English dictionary.

For most of the 20th century, Wade-Giles was the main system used in English-speaking countries to write Chinese words. You can find it in many older books about China, especially those published before 1979. It took the place of older systems that were common until the late 1800s. Today, the Pinyin system has mostly replaced Wade-Giles. However, Wade-Giles is still used in Taiwan.

One special thing about Wade-Giles is how it uses the apostrophe. It uses an apostrophe to show "breathy" sounds, also called aspirated consonants. For example, the Pinyin word ping (with a breathy 'p' sound) is written as p'ing in Wade-Giles. But the Pinyin word bing (without a breathy 'p' sound) is written as ping in Wade-Giles. Chinese does not have sounds like the "b" in "big" or "d" in "dog" that English has. Instead, Chinese only tells the difference between sounds with a breath and sounds without a breath. So, an apostrophe helps show this difference.

However, many people who did not know Wade-Giles did not understand what the apostrophe meant. They often ignored it when reading or writing Chinese words. This led to many non-Chinese speakers saying Chinese words incorrectly. Famous examples include Tao, tai chi, and kung fu. When the apostrophe is completely ignored in Wade-Giles spellings, it is sometimes called incorrect Wade-Giles.

How Wade-Giles Compares to Pinyin

This chart helps you see how Wade-Giles compares to Pinyin, another way to write Chinese sounds.

Examples of Wade-Giles in Sentences

Here are some sentences in Chinese characters, Pinyin, and Wade-Giles. You can also see their English meanings.

Images for kids

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  Thomas Francis Wade and officers in China, 1879.

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  Tzu Chi University, Hualien

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  Lienchiang County Hospital and Health Bureau

See also

In Spanish: Wade-Giles para niños