Google IME - Google Chinese Input Method Editor

[gougou]

Could Google have simply licensed this on-the-quiet from sogou?

Given Sogou's outspokenness on the issue, that is rather unlikely.

[fuzzylintman]

gato, this sounds like an interesting IME and I would like to learn it, but as with the google pinyin IME (which I use all the time) the interface seems to only be in Chinese. Well this is great if you are chinese, but I'm American, trying to learn chinese. Unfortunately, I'm a near-beginner, and I can't figure out what is different about the Jia Jia IME - it seems to work exactly the same as the google IME. I assume there is some option I can turn on to switch to double-pinyin, but the menu is all chinese so I have no idea what to do. Is there any documentation in English, or a way to switch the user interface to English??

-mdb

[skylee]

Because you guys have said so many nice things about google ime I've installed it in my home pc. As you probably know I write in traditional Chinese and it is VERY annoying that I can't type simple words such as 隻, 後, 雲 and 裏 using google ime. Any solutions please???

I also wanted to install it in my office pc but i am not allowed to because it is "unstable" and a "beta". But if google ime can't provide those simple characters perhaps I should say 焉知非福.

[fuzzylintman]

skylee, not sure why you say you can't type those characters... I presume that you mean that you can't get google IME to output traditional characters? While the google IME is active, try pressing Ctrl-Shift-T... this toggles back and forth between traditional and simplified characters. Also when you are typing, realize that you can press "." and "," to toggle among additional choices. I was able to find the first three characters you complain about, but I don't even know what the 4th one is (it doesn't appear in my translation program) so I wasn't able to look for that one.

-fuzzylintman

[<<恒心>>]

The 4th character is a common one and a must-have for any IME-- "里".

Ctrl + Shift + T works like a charm for traditional characters though!

[skylee]

thanks for the replies. I don't know why I couldn't find those words but now I can. But 隻 is the 101st on the list for zhi...

thanks anyway.

[<<恒心>>]

Skylee: That should change quickly with use. Google IME is adaptive and takes note of the vocabulary you use, so you'll see that and other common characters move up the list.

[ABCinChina]

Skylee, I've had this same problem with Google IME in that it doesn't get quite a lot of traditional words correct. For example, common words like 這裡,頭髮,什麽, etc. all get mixed with simplified characters. Yet, Google IME can learn what you want in time, but it will still type these words incorrectly if you're typing out a long sentence.

Because of this problem, I switched to Sogou and all these words come out correctly. Also, if there's a traditional word that comes out incorrectly, you can report the correct word to Sogou by right-clicking and it will be immediately changed in your vocabulary list. If you type traditional Chinese with Hanyu pinyin, then Sogou is the way to go!

Edit: For words like 隻, 後, 雲, 裏, 妳, etc., you're going to have to find the word however far back it is. The more you use the word, the more close it will get on the list. But what I do is just go into the settings and make zhi = 隻, hou = 後, etc. In this way, you can also set which order it comes out. (Ex. 1st, 2nd, 3rd) These are all in the "自定义短语设置".

[skylee]

thanks for the advice. wondering if I should uninstall google and get sogou installed instead.

[yonglin]

Skylee, I've had this same problem with Google IME in that it doesn't get quite a lot of traditional words correct. For example, common words like 這裡,頭髮,什麽, etc. all get mixed with simplified characters. Yet, Google IME can learn what you want in time, but it will still type these words incorrectly if you're typing out a long sentence.

Actually, it was exactly like that in the early versions of the Sogou, which was incredibly annoying. This has improved a lot with later updates, however, and I have don't have any problems anymore. It doesn't surprise me at all that the Google one behaves like that, given that it's essentially a rip-off of the earlier version of Sogou...

[skylee]

Using google ime to input traditional characters but it does not give me what I want - the character 症. OH WHY OH WHY??? I have to switch to the simplified mode to get the character. The programme seems to think that the traditional form of 症 is 癥 or 征.This is soooo frustrating.

Any one has any suggestion to solve this please?

I guess I will have to install sogou.

[roddy]

Just checked and Sogou seems to do the same thing. Wenlin also seems to lack 症 as a traditional character.

[ABCinChina]

症 is also not found in any of the traditional version of Powerword dictionaries. Just some of the things we have to put up with unless we switch over to zhuyin input. Hanyu pinyin is so much faster and you don't need a special Taiwan zhuyin keyboard.

I also noticed that 凶 is not present on the traditional side Google or Sogou as there is only 兇. I was told that in a traditional context, these two words have separate meanings.

Edited November 15, 2008 at 03:09 AM by ABCinChina

[Hofmann]

凶 = bad, evil, unfortunate

兇 = fierce, cruel

Not unexpected from an IME that's primarily written for Simplified Chinese users. Sogou's other input features, like radical names, would be useful if they weren't so blatantly wrong. They say the thing on the left of 膽 is a moon. I haven't figured out what they call 辵 yet, or 厂.

[skylee]

Is there an intelligent IME designed for hanyu pinyin and traditional output (besides windows, google and sogou)?

I don't use the windows traditional IME basically because sometimes it expects input different from hanyu pinyin (see the thread on different pronunciations in taiwan and mainland). But google and sogou (I've installed sogou) seem to be inadequate as far as traditional output is concerned.

[skylee]

Since the installation of Sogou IME at my pc I've found that the keys of some punctuation marks have been changed. For example, when I want a double quotation mark and press shift+' what I get is an @ and vice versa. And when I want a # and press shift+3 it will be a £ instead. This won't happen if Google IME or Sogou IME is in use.

Would appreciate any advice on what caused this and how to fix it. Thanks.

[renzhe]

Sounds like you got a British layout instead of the US layout, or vice versa (not sure what you used before).

British layout has the double quotation marks above the number "2", like all European layouts, American layout has it above the single quotation mark. Also, pound over "3" is the British layout.

I don't know what caused it, but look somewhere if you got the layouts mixed up somewhere.

[imron]

Yes, it sounds like you've got the British keyboard layout installed. Right click on the IME icon in the windows task bar, and choose 设置. This will bring up the Text Services and Input Languages dialog. From there you will be able to see all the keyboard layouts you have installed. If one says 英语（英国）or something similar, then that will be the problem and you probably want to delete it. You also want to make sure that you have at least one input method that says 美式键盘, which is the standard US-keyboard layout it sounds you are familiar with (" above ', @ above 2 etc), plus then whatever Chinese input methods you normally use.

[skylee]

I've fixed it. Thanks renzhe and imron.

[ABCinChina]

These mistakes are just a bit annoying with Sogou but there is a way you can help them fix the problem for 症, 凶, and others. Just type something like "yiyuzheng" (抑郁症) in Sogou and click the “報告措詞”. Then you can explain to them that 癥 is not 症 in traditional Chinese and that 症 also needs to be added into the traditional side. Then it should be fixed in the next version. I'm going to give it a try...