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Pinyin, or more formally Hanyu Pinyin, is currently the most commonly used Romanizationsy stem for standard Chinese. Hanyu means the Chinese language, and pinyin means "phoneticnotation", or more literally, "spelling sound" or "spelled sound" [（Pin means "spell （ing）" and Yin means "sound （s）"]. It is a system of romanization （phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script）. Developed by a government committee in the People's Republic of China （PRC）,the system was initially approved by the Chinese government on February 11, 1958. and is no wthe official Romanization system of China, Singapore, the US Library of C
ngress, and theAmerican Library Association. Library standards allow for easier access to documents by makingit easier to locate Chinese language materials. A worldwide standard also facilitates the exchange of data between institutions in various countries. Learning Pinyin is important to learn to speak standard Chinese and type Chinese characters. It transcribes the sounds of standard Chinese using the Romanized alphabet. Pinyin is most commonly used in China for teaching school children to read and it is also widely used in teaching materials designed for Westerners who wish to learn to speak standard Chinese and type Chinese Hanzi characters. The Intemational Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as the international standard in 1982, and since then it has been adopted by many other organizations. Since January 1, 2009, it is also the official romanizationsystem in Taiwan. It is used to teach Chinese school children and foreign learners the standardpronunciation of Mandarin Chinese, to spell Chinese names in foreign publications and to enter Chinese Hanzi characters on computers and cellular phones.