Chinese Pinyin tone marks

Spelling and status

The numbered tones correspond to ā, á, ǎ and à in this example. Neutral tone has no tone mark. Ü is a vowel spelling distinction rather than a fifth tone, and it can take a tone mark too, as in ǚ. The official Pinyin standard determines which vowel receives the mark in a syllable. [48], [49], [4]

Distinctions to preserve

Do not use a breve in place of the third-tone caron. A keyboard may use v as an input convention for ü, but that does not make v the published spelling of that vowel. The table provides marked vowels rather than attaching accents to Chinese characters or guessing the tone of an unannotated word. [48], [49], [4], [1], [2]

Typing and text forms

Copying is exact; preview circles are excluded. Compare normalization forms.

Word for Windows

Select a hex code, then Alt+X; repeat for each scalar.

Mac and mobile

Hold a letter for supported variants; use Character Viewer on Mac or a language keyboard on mobile.

HTML

Use UTF-8 text or the numeric references in Details, in order.

Full typing instructions ·HTML, CSS and JavaScript entry ·Verified Alt codes.

Sources and method

Usage statements link to the authority that supports their scope. Character names, categories, combining classes and normalization results come from the pinned Unicode data. A canonical decomposition does not establish language membership or spelling frequency.

Source access date: 2026-09-14.

• [48] Chinese Ministry of Education: GB/T 16159, 2012. Hanyu Pinyin orthography, vowel tone marks and neutral tone; this is romanization, not added marks on Han characters.
• [49] Henan Normal University: reproduced Pinyin spelling standard. Readable university reproduction of GB/T 16159-2012; section on tone placement and unmarked neutral tone. Used alongside the official Ministry PDF.
• [4] Unicode combining mark names and annotations. Names, cross references and narrowly attributed usage annotations. Historical annotations are not automatically current recommendations.
• [1] Unicode Character Database 17.0.0.
• [2] Unicode normalization, UAX #15.
• [9] CLDR 48.2 locale exemplars. Supplementary inventory checks against direct main and auxiliary exemplar sets. Exemplars do not establish full spelling or pronunciation rules.
• [10] Microsoft: Unicode character entry in Word.
• [11] Apple: enter characters with accent marks.
• [12] Google: use Gboard.
• [13] Unicode: fonts and keyboards FAQ.
• [14] HTML numeric character references.

Read the editorial method and inspect the underlying datasets.