The obvious advantage of pinyin-based input methods is the ease of learning; nativethose Mandarinwho speakersare familiar with pinyin would be able to input Chinese characters with virtuallyalmost no learningtraining.
For people who havedo difficultynot speakingspeak Mandarin, however, this advantage becomes its disadvantage. For some speakers of Mandarin who merge the sounds represented by ''c'' and ''ch'', ''s'' and ''sh'', ''z'' and ''zh'', ''n'' and ''ng'', or ''h'' and ''l'', pinyin-based input methods can be difficult to use. Systems allowing the user to input incorrect pronunciations alleviate this problem somewhat.
