<p>There's no set limit. Some pinyin can be used for dozens of character; some only map to a few.</p>

<p>For example:</p>

<p>/yu4/ map to the following characters:</p>

<p>雨, 育, 玉, 譽, 遇, 羽, 預, 寓, 熨, 獄, 鬱, 諭, 與, 裕, 喻, 域, 愈, 慾, 欲, 浴, 澳. 禦, 籲, 芋, 蔚, 豫, 郁, 鬻, 御, 喐, 峪, 鈺, 逳, 癒, 聿, 鷸</p>

<p>while  /ben3 / only map to : 本, 苯 and 捹</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-24T08:28:10.980Z
Wondering if you know of any example with more than 100. Also wondering what you mean exactly by "no limit set". This is because new words can be invented I'm guessing, with the same pronunciation as old words.
Lance Pollard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-24T08:33:22.220Z
@Lance Pollard It is highly unlikely that any pinyin can map to more than couple dozens of characters. Also, Mandarin has 4 tones, change /ben3/ to /ben1/ and it map to two other different characters 錛 and 奔, and  錛 is such a rare character, the only useful character that map to  /ben1/ is 奔. tone change reduce the number of  pinyin  and character match. (many characters also have more than one pinyin)
Tang Ho
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-03-18T23:44:35.473Z
Can 羽 and 澳 be pronounced yu4?  (They don't appear in CC-EDICT, but it might be incomplete.)
Becky 李蓓
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-24T08:26:44.810Z
2018-09-24T08:26:44.810Z
Tang Ho
<p><em>The Phonology of Standard Chinese</em> by San Duanmu (端木三) has a list of the 15 most common syllables, followed by the number of different characters pronounced that way, not including tones.</p>
<p>yi (106)，ji (93), yu (90),
fu (73),
zhi (72),
li (71),
qi (66),
yuan (64),
xi (64),
jian (61),
shi (58),
wu (55),
wei (53),
ju (51), pi (51）</p>
<p><s>Tones distribution should be roughly even for the most part </s> although the book does say that yi4 represents 63 different words.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-26T07:41:04.980Z
"Tones distribution should be roughly even for the most part": actually, I expect it not to be even, for the most part. I haven't checked but I could do that at some point.
goPlayerJuggler
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-26T07:52:44.663Z
Yeah, I'm making too many assumptions about the tones. I'll edit that part.
user20347
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-06T16:24:23.117Z
Just if anyone was wondering or was too lazy to look it up, these are the 60 I managed to find: `义, 弋, 呓, 奕, 埸, 异, 役, 佾, 乂, 亦, 劓, 弈, 嗌, 屹, 佚, 峄, 刈, 亿, 忆, 仡, 熠, 殪, 缢, 绎, 溢, 瘗, 怿, 抑, 浥, 易, 羿, 癔, 疫, 益, 毅, 意, 悒, 翊, 挹, 懿, 肄, 镒, 轶, 诣, 臆, 裔, 邑, 艺, 薏, 艾, 镱, 逸, 谊, 蜴, 翌, 翳, 译, 议, 翼, 驿`. It seems that there are still 3 (three) missing.
shycha
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-09-26T05:38:51.723Z
2018-09-26T09:10:36.817Z
2020-06-17T09:50:11.587Z
user20347
<p>So it seems that there is no way to map the Pinyin version of the pronunciation of Chinese words into Chinese characters directly:</p>

<p><a href="https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31454/if-pinyin-or-other-romanization-can-be-translated-back-into-chinese-characters">If Pinyin (or Other Romanization) can be Translated Back into Chinese Characters</a></p>

<p>What must be done is, in addition to spelling out the sound of the word in Pinyin, you must select the appropriate character out of a list of characters that match that sound/spelling.</p>

<p>What I'm wondering is, the max number of items that would appear in that list (roughly). For example, say that there are 10 words/characters that are all called <code>yī</code>. Then there are just 10 characters in the list you'd have to select from when typing that in. Maybe there is only 1 matching character, I'm not sure.</p>

<p>Wondering what the rough estimate or scale is of how many character sets map to a single pronunciation. If it's like 5 or 10 max, or 100  or 1000 in some cases. That would be interesting to know.</p>

<pinyin>
The max number of characters that map to a single pronunciation
# The max number of characters that map to a single pronunciation

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-09-24)

So it seems that there is no way to map the Pinyin version of the pronunciation of Chinese words into Chinese characters directly:

[If Pinyin (or Other Romanization) can be Translated Back into Chinese Characters](https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31454/if-pinyin-or-other-romanization-can-be-translated-back-into-chinese-characters)

What must be done is, in addition to spelling out the sound of the word in Pinyin, you must select the appropriate character out of a list of characters that match that sound/spelling.

What I'm wondering is, the max number of items that would appear in that list (roughly). For example, say that there are 10 words/characters that are all called `yī`. Then there are just 10 characters in the list you'd have to select from when typing that in. Maybe there is only 1 matching character, I'm not sure.

Wondering what the rough estimate or scale is of how many character sets map to a single pronunciation. If it's like 5 or 10 max, or 100 or 1000 in some cases. That would be interesting to know.

**Tags:** pinyin

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2018-09-26. Score: 8 | Accepted answer

*The Phonology of Standard Chinese* by San Duanmu (端木三) has a list of the 15 most common syllables, followed by the number of different characters pronounced that way, not including tones.

yi (106)，ji (93), yu (90),
fu (73),
zhi (72),
li (71),
qi (66),
yuan (64),
xi (64),
jian (61),
shi (58),
wu (55),
wei (53),
ju (51), pi (51）

~~Tones distribution should be roughly even for the most part~~  although the book does say that yi4 represents 63 different words.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: "Tones distribution should be roughly even for the most part": actually, I expect it not to be even, for the most part. I haven't checked but I could do that at some point.  
> **username_3**: Yeah, I'm making too many assumptions about the tones. I'll edit that part.  
> **username_5**: Just if anyone was wondering or was too lazy to look it up, these are the 60 I managed to find: `义, 弋, 呓, 奕, 埸, 异, 役, 佾, 乂, 亦, 劓, 弈, 嗌, 屹, 佚, 峄, 刈, 亿, 忆, 仡, 熠, 殪, 缢, 绎, 溢, 瘗, 怿, 抑, 浥, 易, 羿, 癔, 疫, 益, 毅, 意, 悒, 翊, 挹, 懿, 肄, 镒, 轶, 诣, 臆, 裔, 邑, 艺, 薏, 艾, 镱, 逸, 谊, 蜴, 翌, 翳, 译, 议, 翼, 驿`. It seems that there are still 3 (three) missing.  

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### Answer by username_1 on 2018-09-24. Score: 4

There's no set limit. Some pinyin can be used for dozens of character; some only map to a few.

For example:

/yu4/ map to the following characters:

雨, 育, 玉, 譽, 遇, 羽, 預, 寓, 熨, 獄, 鬱, 諭, 與, 裕, 喻, 域, 愈, 慾, 欲, 浴, 澳. 禦, 籲, 芋, 蔚, 豫, 郁, 鬻, 御, 喐, 峪, 鈺, 逳, 癒, 聿, 鷸

while /ben3 / only map to : 本, 苯 and 捹

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Wondering if you know of any example with more than 100. Also wondering what you mean exactly by "no limit set". This is because new words can be invented I'm guessing, with the same pronunciation as old words.  
> **username_1**: @Lance Pollard It is highly unlikely that any pinyin can map to more than couple dozens of characters. Also, Mandarin has 4 tones, change /ben3/ to /ben1/ and it map to two other different characters 錛 and 奔, and  錛 is such a rare character, the only useful character that map to  /ben1/ is 奔. tone change reduce the number of  pinyin  and character match. (many characters also have more than one pinyin)  
> **username_2**: Can 羽 and 澳 be pronounced yu4?  (They don't appear in CC-EDICT, but it might be incomplete.)  

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