Chinese input method: Difference between revisions

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== History ==

[[Image:Large chinese keyboard.jpg|thumb|right|An early experimental Chinese radical keyboard using 496 keys for input was developed by researchers of [[National Chiao Tung University]] in Taiwan, but was never widely used.<ref name="xinzhu">{{cite web|url=https://hccg.culture.tw/home/zh-tw/NCTU_PC_EQUIPMENT/597871|title=1973年交大研製第一個中文鍵盤|website=The memory of Hsinchu city|language=zh|access-date=2022-08-25}}</ref>]]

Chinese input methods predate the computer. One of the early attempts was an electro-mechanical [[Chinese typewriter]] Ming kwaiMingkwai ({{zh|c=明快 |p=míngkuài |w=ming-k'uai}}) which was invented by [[Lin Yutang]], a prominent Chinese writer, in the 1940s. It assigned thirty base shapes or strokes to different keys and adopted a new way of categorizing Chinese characters. But the typewriter was not produced commercially and Lin soon found himself deeply in debt.<ref>[http://203.68.20.65/science/content/1972/00110035/0018.htm 中文與計算機] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20030513120935/http://203.68.20.65/science/content/1972/00110035/0018.htm |date=2003-05-13 }}</ref>

Before the 1980s, Chinese publishers hired teams of workers and selected a few thousand type pieces from an enormous Chinese character set. Chinese government agencies entered characters using a long, complicated list of [[Chinese telegraph code]]s, which assigned different numbers to each character. During the early computer era, Chinese characters were categorized by their radicals or Pinyin romanization, but results were less than satisfactory.

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Due to these complexities, there is no "standard" method.

By 1989, [[bopomofo]] and pinyin were available for the [[IBM PC]].<ref name="pournelle198902">{{Cite magazine |last=Pournelle |first=Jerry |date=February 1989 |title=Ready Line Overload |url=https://archive.org/details/eu_BYTE-1989-02_OCR/page/n175/mode/2up?view=theater |access-date=2024-10-08 |magazine=BYTE |pages=121-137}}</ref> In mainland China, pinyin methods such as [[Sogou Pinyin]] and [[Google Pinyin]] are the most popular. In [[Taiwan]], use of [[Cangjie method|Cangjie]], [[Dayi method|Dayi]], Boshiamy, and [[bopomofo]] predominate; and in [[Hong Kong]] and [[Macau]], the [[Cangjie method|Cangjie]] is most often taught in schools, while a few schools teach [[CKC Chinese Input System]].<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.dsedj.gov.mo/cre/tmag/07/9-2.htm|title=倉頡以外的另一個選擇 ─"縱橫輸入法"|journal=教師雜誌|issue=7|year=2004|access-date=2022-08-26}}</ref>

Other methods include [[handwriting recognition]], [[Optical character recognition|OCR]] and [[speech recognition]]. The computer itself must first be "trained" before the first or second of these methods are used; that is, the new user enters the system in a special "learning mode" so that the system can learn to identify their handwriting or speech patterns. The latter two methods are used less frequently than keyboard-based input methods and suffer from relatively high error rates, especially when used without proper "training", though higher error rates are an acceptable trade-off to many users.