The Chinese transcription system invented by theFrench School of the Far East (EFEO) was the most widely used in theFrench-speaking world until the mid-20th century. While it is often deemed to have been devised bySéraphin Couvreur, who was not an EFEO member, its actual creator wasArnold Vissière [fr] (1858–1930).^[1] It was superseded byHanyu Pinyin.

The transcription of the EFEO did not borrow its phonetics from the national officialStandard Chinese. Rather, it was synthesized independently to be a mean of Chinese dialects, and shows a state of sounds a little older in form (as inLatinxua Sin Wenz and the older version ofWade-Giles). Hence, the phoneme[tɕ] (Pinyin:⟨j⟩), is transcribed as either⟨ts⟩ or⟨k⟩; before thejian-tuan merger in contemporary Mandarin, i.e. themerger between thealveolar consonants and thealveolo-palatal consonants, before the high front vowels[i] and[y].

Since EFEO makes use, to a large extent, of the phonetic values of Latin letters as used in French, the transcription of many Chinese syllables into the EFEO system is quite similar to how they were transcribed by French missionaries in the late 17th to 19th centuries (e.g., as seen inDescription ... de la Chine compiled byJean-Baptiste Du Halde); for example, "Yanzhou Fou" is "Yen-tcheou-fou" in both cases. However, a few features (notably, the wide use of "ts", and the use of apostrophes to show aspiration) distinguishes it from the early French missionary systems.^[2]

		Coda
		∅			/i/		/u/		/n/		/ŋ/			/ɻ/
Medial	∅	e/eu [ɨ] ㄭ -i	ö/é [ɤ] ㄜ e	a [a] ㄚ a	ei [ei̯] ㄟ ei	ai [ai̯] ㄞ ai	eou [ou̯] ㄡ ou	ao [au̯] ㄠ ao	en [ən] ㄣ en	an [an] ㄢ an	ong [ʊŋ] ㄨㄥ ong	eng [əŋ] ㄥ eng	ang [aŋ] ㄤ ang	eul [aɚ̯] ㄦ er
	/j/	i [i] ㄧ i	ie [je] ㄧㄝ ie	ia [ja] ㄧㄚ ia			ieou [jou̯] ㄧㄡ iu	iao [jau̯] ㄧㄠ iao	in [in] ㄧㄣ in	ien [jɛn] ㄧㄢ ian	iong [jʊŋ] ㄩㄥ iong	ing [iŋ] ㄧㄥ ing	iang [jaŋ] ㄧㄤ iang
	/w/	ou [u] ㄨ u	ouo [wo] ㄨㄛ uo	oua [wa] ㄨㄚ ua	ouei [wei̯] ㄨㄟ ui	ouai [wai̯] ㄨㄞ uai			ouen [wən] ㄨㄣ un	ouan [wan] ㄨㄢ uan	ouong [wəŋ] ㄨㄥ ueng		ouang [waŋ] ㄨㄤ uang
	/y/	iu [y] ㄩ ü	iue [ɥe] ㄩㄝ üe						iun [yn] ㄩㄣ ün	iuan [ɥɛn] ㄩㄢ üan

• Drettas, Dimitri (2016)."Fact-Checking Against Diluted Knowledge: Setting the Record Straight on Séraphin Couvreur and the EFEO Romanization System".Sinology News 稷風. No. 2. Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology. pp. 39–41.

• UNESCO transcription norms for Chinese

• Standard Chinese
• Romanization of Chinese

• Use Canadian English from February 2019
• All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from March 2015
• Pages with plain IPA