Chinese input methods for computers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since the Chinese language uses a logographic script — that is, a script where one or two "characters" corresponds roughly to one "word" or meaning — there are vastly more characters, or glyphs, than there are keys on a standard computer keyboard. Many early Chinese computers used keyboards with thousands of keys.

An experimental Chinese keyboard with many keys.

A variety of keyboard input method editors or IMEs have been designed to allow the input of Chinese characters using standard keyboards.

Keyboard input methods can be classified in three main types:

by encoding
by pronunciation
by structure of the characters.

The following are just some samples of Chinese input methods. Many of those input methods have variations. Full Pinyin and Double Pinyin are variations of the Pinyin input method. In addition, the methods which require the user to select a character from a menu generally have sophisticated methods for guessing which characters the user intends based on context.

Different people are most comfortable with different methods and each standard has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, for someone who is already familiar with Pinyin, the Pinyin method can be learned instantly, and most Mandarin speakers master pronunciation through Pinyin. However, the maximum typing rate is limited, and learning the system can be difficult for those not familiar with Pinyin. Wubi takes much effort to learn, but expert typists can enter text much faster with it than with the phonetic methods. Because of these factors, there is very little likelihood of a "standard" method evolving.

Other means of inputting Chinese characters include hand-writing recognition, OCR and voice recognition. The first and last of these usually must be “trained” before use; that is, the user must first use the system in a special “learning mode” so that the system can get accustomed to the user’s handwriting or speech pattern, and failure to do so will increase the error rate of recognition. These, especially the latter two, are less frequently used than keyboard-based input methods and, as with even the most advanced English language systems, suffer from relatively high error rates, especially when used without proper “training”, though the error rates are an acceptable tradeoff to many users.

Particular mention should be given to hand-writing recognition systems: Although mostly associated with stylus- and tablet-based systems, it is in fact one of the built-in input methods in Windows XP systems (though Office XP or Office 2003 is required). Hand-writing recognition systems for Chinese are generally far more reliable.

Finally, some systems allow Chinese characters to be input by typing their equivalent English words.