pinyin spelling rules?

[leosmith]

How important is it to know the pinyin spelling rules? For example, if I read miu and pronounce it correctly, hear miu and spell it correctly, do I need to know the final is actually iou?

Thanks,

Leo

[flameproof]

Pinyin, like any other phonetic spelling system, has limitations. But Pinyin has the benefit of a very late developed system and people have put thoughts into it. Therefore it is fairly close, much closer then i.e. English to the spoken language.

Look i.e. at the word "circus" and you know what I mean.

[imron]

It's not really necessary, but it can be useful when you then see something like "you", because if you know the rules then you know that "you" is really just "iou", and therefore you will know that the final sound in "miu" should be pronounced the same as "you" - even though they have quite different spellings. There are a few other ones like this, and if you know the rules, then it makes it easier to be consistent with your sounds.

[againstwind]

Agree with flameproof and imron.

[leosmith]

It's not really necessary, but it can be useful when you then see something like "you", because if you know the rules then you know that "you" is really just "iou", and therefore you will know that the final sound in "miu" should be pronounced the same as "you" - even though they have quite different spellings. There are a few other ones like this, and if you know the rules, then it makes it easier to be consistent with your sounds.

Thanks. Is there any relation to characters at all? That is, if I know that a given syllable has a given final, will that make it easier to guess the character?

[imron]

Nope. Although the vast majority of characters have a phonetic component, it relies on you knowing the pronunciation of the character that acts as the phonetic component e.g. for 妈 mā the phonetic component is 马 mǎ. If you didn't recognise 妈 you could make a fair guess that it's pronunciation was either mā má mǎ or mà. However you should be careful, because for characters like 驴 (lǘ) and 骗 (piàn) the phonetic component isn't 马, but 户 (hù) and 扁 (biǎn) respectively. Note that the phonetic component also doesn't necessarily have exactly the same pronunciation as the character itself, but is more just a rough guide.