1 The second problem of Chinese katakana in Xinhua Dictionary

This is the phonetic symbol of Chinese characters, also called phonetic symbol.

Before Chinese phonetic alphabet appeared, phonetic alphabet was the main way to annotate Chinese characters in dictionaries, dictionaries and teaching materials. After the emergence of Chinese phonetic alphabet in the late 1950s, it was used as an auxiliary in Chinese mainland, but it is still used as a Chinese character annotation in Hong Kong and Taiwan.