Transliteration into Chinese characters

Transcription
Front cover of the official transcription guide, Names of the World's Peoples: A Comprehensive Dictionary of Names in Roman-Chinese.
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Literal meaning	sound translation transcribe
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin yīnyì
Transcription
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Literal meaning	translated name
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin yìmíng

Transcription into Chinese refers to the use of traditional or simplified characters to transcribe phonetically the sound of terms and names foreign to the Chinese language. Transcription is distinct from translation into Chinese whereby the meaning of a foreign word is communicated in Chinese. Since, in both mainland China and Taiwan, Hanyu Pinyin is now used to transcribe Chinese into a modified Latin alphabet and since English classes are now standard in most secondary schools, it is increasingly common to see foreign names and terms left in their original form in Chinese texts. However, for mass media and marketing within China and for non-European languages, particularly those of the Chinese minorities, transcription into characters remains very common.

Despite the importance of Cantonese and other southern coastal varieties of Chinese to foreign contact during the 19th century (as seen, for instance, in the number of Cantonese loanwords in English), the northern capital dialect has been formally sanctioned within the country for centuries. This status continued under the Republic, which retained the importance of the "National Language" (國語, Guóyǔ) despite moving its capital to Nanking, Chungking, and Taipei, none of which natively spoke it. Similarly, "Standard Chinese" (普通话, Pǔtōnghuà) has been mandatory for most media and education throughout the People's Republic of China since 1956. Except for a handful of traditional exceptions, modern transcription therefore uses the standardized Mandarin pronunciations exclusively.