If you want to penetrate more deeply into linguistics or literature, next to Hanyu Pinyin transcription, you should also consider the Zhuyin (Bo Po Mo Fo) alphabet created in the Chinese Republic era and exclusively used in Taiwan nowadays. I bought my cell phone in Taiwan and I still use Bo Po Mo Fo to write short messages in Chinese on my cell phone, which I consider faster than Hanyu Pinyin... --- Neben Hanyu Pinyin gibt es auch die Zhuyin-Umschrift aus der Zeit der chinesischen Republik. Heute wird das System nur noch in Taiwan verwendet. Es lohnt sich, das System zu erlernen, wenn man chinesische Literatur oder Sprachwissenschaft studieren will. Ich benutze das Zhuyin-System, wenn ich auf meinem Handy (German "English": cell phone) Kurznachrichten schreibe. --- Of course, most students prefer "Hanyu Pinyin" because the work load of learning Chinese characters is huge and there is no absolute need to learn yet another system of characters for the transcription. On the other hand, if you want to improve your Chinese pronounciation later on, as far as I know, many teachers prefer the Zhuyin system to teach pronounciation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo