EDIT Bopomofo, also known as zhuyin fuhao (\'symbols for annotating sounds\'), is a Chinese alphabet used for spelling out the more complex ideographic Chinese characters. The name \'bopomofo\' comes from the sounds of the first four characters in the alphabet (with a vowel interpolated): B(o), P(o), M(o) and F(o) (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ).

Nowadays Pinyin transcription (based on roman letters) is used in China when Chinese is written phonetically. In Taiwan, bopomofo is still the official national phonetic script, although various romanisations are used as well, for example on street signs and in passports and other official documents.
Bopomofo script has been used in schools. Children\'s books were (and in Taiwan still are) printed with small bopomofo characters alongside the hanzi, providing a phonetic gloss. Other uses include phonetic glosses in texts with little-known characters, especially classical texts, and, in Taiwan, as a text entry method for computers, mobile phones, electronic dictionaries etc.

All of the above refers to the use of bopomofo with Mandarin. It has been used to write two other Chinese languages spoken in Taiwan: Taiwanese (a min-nan Chinese language) and Hakka. Since these languages have different phonetics from Mandarin some extra bopomofo characters are needed to write them.

Bopomofo is also used as the main writing system for some Taiwanese indigenous (non-Chinese) languages such as Atayal and Paiwan.

 ted  : :  nicka