Using The Language Toolbar tips please

[digmen1]

Hi Guys

I am a native English speaker.

I am teaching myself to write basic Chinese on computer.

I have installed the Asian language options on my Windows XP machine.

I find the language tool bar very slow and tedious to use, as I need to swap between English, Pinyin and Chinese Characters.

Are the some tricks to using this toolbar ? Eg a quick toggle Chinese/English etc ?

Regards

Digby

New Zealand

[Nibble]

There are a lot of keyboard shortcuts, but the most important one to remember is alt+shift. This will switch between English and Chinese. In Chinese mode, just type the pinyin with or without tone numbers, and hit space bar to convert them to hanzi. You can do this for indivdual characters, compounds, and even sentences. If it picks the wrong characters, hit the right arrow to get a list of alternatives.

[digmen1]

Hi Nibble,

Thanks for that, sounds just what I wanted, but Alt+Shift does not work for me, are you sure it is alt+shift ?

Regards

Digby

[imron]

Alt-shift will change between country layouts (i.e. the EN, CH, FR bit that appears in the language bar) Ctrl-shift will then change between the various keyboard layouts/IMEs you have installed for that country, (US keyboard, MS Pinyin, Wubi, etc).

If you're using a Chinese IME, then ctrl-space is a quick way to jump from Chinese to English and back again.

If those keyboard shortcuts don't work for you, then right-click on the language bar and select properties. Then in the dialog box that pops up, there should be a button towards the bottom that says something like "keyboard settings" (I'm running Chinese XP, so I can't tell you the exact English at the moment). From here you can see what the current keyboard shortcuts are, and configure new ones if you so desire.

[Jonny Wang]

On my computer, once I'm in Chinese mode (by pressing "Alt + Shift"), I just have to hit "Shift" to switch back and forth between Chinese and English input. I think it can be set up differently according to your preferences. After you have typed the pinyin and need to change the characters that Windows "guesses" from your pinyin, use the left and right arrow keys to move between characters that you've typed and then use the up and down arrow keys to select the correct charcter for each character that Windows has guessed incorrectly.

[digmen1]

Thanks guys

That was great help , I should be able to type much faster now !

I have found the Settings option on IME

Regards

Digby