Chinese Input methods

[roddy]

You can always stop posting in it . . .

[imron]

no one will use wubi when he only knows traditional character,

Well, probably no Chinese person, but there are several Chinese learners on this thread and on other threads who are only interested in traditional characters and who have expressed an interest in learning Wubi because they are interested in learning a character-based input method and because there seems to be a lot more information out there regarding Wubi than other character-based input methods.

[Gleaves]

Unrelated to the cangjie/wubi/simp/trad conversation, I just wanted to chime in and offer my thanks, to imron especially, on the great wubi input info. I don't think I would have found these details on my own.

I'm currently using the sogou wubi version. I find the ability to type pinyin and get the wubi code incredibly useful. Also, the selection of skins available for download was also key. Not because I necessarily need a Beijing 2008 or Doraemon branded input method, but because I type from the couch (pc hooked up to tv). So getting the right presentation plus being able to greatly increase the font size is a must. I like it enough that I find using the wubi input method on my linux laptop almost unbearable. (It's not SCIM, I believe it is GCIN or something like that).

I'm very slow with wubi, but it doesn't really matter because it's still quicker than the dictionary or handwriting recognition. Wubi has really taken away some of the pain of transcribing subtitles, comic books, or anything else analog.

[lemur]

Imron said:

Well, probably no Chinese person, but there are several Chinese learners on this thread and on other threads who are only interested in traditional characters and who have expressed an interest in learning Wubi because they are interested in learning a character-based input method and because there seems to be a lot more information out there regarding Wubi than other character-based input methods.

Spot on!

vampire said:

[...] wubi is designed based on simplified character, and cangjie on traditional character, no one will use wubi when he only knows traditional character [...]

Have you been paying attention at all to past conversation in this thread? A substantial part of the conversation in this thread was whether or not Wubi supports traditional characters. The answer to this question is "yes, Wubi does support traditional characters." So it is not ludicrous to want to use Wubi to type traditional characters. But the fact is that using Wubi to input traditional characters comes with a significant caveat. Because even if in theory Wubi supports traditional characters and even if there are implementations out there which do implement support for traditional characters properly (e.g. InputKing's Wubi implementation), it seems that across implementations, support for traditional characters in Wubi is less than ideal (e.g. scim and CJKOS).

[ipsi()]

I think fixing SCIM's implementation would be relatively easy, depending on what exactly you wanted to do.

Anyone think of a particularly good reason why the following wouldn't work?

Take CCEDICT.

Do a couple of passes over it to grab all the words, and all the single-character words (Traditional only, ignore the simplified column).

Merge the single characters with SCIM so that you get the code for each. List any that don't exist in SCIM's table so someone can come up with the codes for it.

Go through and populate each multi-character word by using the following rule:

if (word.length == 2) take word[1].firstTwo + word[2].lastTwo

if (word.length == 3) take word[1].firstOne + word[2].firstOne + word[3].lastTwo

if (word.length >= 4) take word[1].firstOne + word[2].firstOne + word[3].firstOne + word[last].lastOne

Note that firstTwo is the first two characters of the code, (e.g. wq for ni3) and firstOne is the first character of the code (e.g. w). lastTwo is the last two characters of the code (e.g. ko for zhao4 (in zhao4xiang4ji1)).

Or something along those lines. I may even try that when I get home.

[FadedStardust]

I just wanna jump in here to say that Cangjie is hard to learn at first, yes, but it's not quite as hard as people think it is. Also, it's not based on Radicals but a set of fixed shapes. For more information see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cangjie_method http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/methods/cangjie.htm

As for books; I can tell you how to find info on a Cangjie book - in English! - right here on our dear forum: http://www.chinese-forums.com/showpost.php?p=162598&postcount=15

That said, I'm sure Wubi is a good input method in it's own right, and if I had known it can be used to input Traditional Characters as well as Simplified I would have given it some very serious thought when I started looking at shape-based IMEs, but I only found this out after I was already way too invested in learning Cangjie...

Also, about SCIM; you guys know you can add custom "phrases" by typing them in the "long way" i.e., character-by-character then pressing and holding shift+alt until a prompt pops up showing the phrase you just typed in and asking you what you'd like to use to type that phrase in the future, riiiight? Oh, you didn't know that? Well, now you do! It's built into the program and (I think) can be used for any/all IMEs supported by SCIM.

[imron]

but I only found this out after I was already way too invested in learning Cangjie

Not to worry. As people have pointed out in this post and others, Traditional character support in Wubi is still somewhat lacking.

[FadedStardust]

...holding shift+alt until a prompt pops up...

To correct myself, it's ctrl+a (as in the letter a, first in the alphabet). Don't know why I typed shift+alt...

[lemur]

I just wanna jump in here to say that Cangjie is hard to learn at first, yes, but it's not quite as hard as people think it is.

I agree. I master neither Wubi nor Cangjie but I've looked at both and started learning both (I'm probably going to stop learning Wubi though) and I think that Cangjie is not as hard as it is sometimes claimed to be. It feels a bit harder than Wubi but we're not talking about night and day here.

[jinhr]

I am a native Chinese using simplified Chinese. I learned to typing Chinese back to 1992, last century. Here I'd like to share you my IME.

I install Wubi and PinYin(Google IME)both. And both are important. Why?

If you know how to write, but don't know how to pronounce, use Wubi. Example: 遽 哓

Wubi is a system with special rules. And there are many implementations of it: 极品五笔，极点五笔，智能五笔，etc. You can choose anyone.

Merit: super fast. Don't worry about how to pronounce. Good when you input sth you are reading.

Shortcoming: When you only know pronunciation, you sit duck. May not good when you input sth you are listening to.

If you know how to pronounce, but don't know how to write, use Pinyin. Example: 喷嚏(I am an engineet graduate. Shamefully, I never managed to learn how to write the 嚏)

Pinyin is standardized by gov. Are there are many implementations of it: 智能拼音，Sougou Pinyin 搜狗拼音，Google IME，etc. You may know that sohu.com sues that Goolge IME steals Sougou Pinyin. I prefer Google IME to Sougou just because I am Google fan. It store my personalized words online and I can use it at any computer.

Merit: slower than Wuwi. Don't worry about how to write. Good when you input sth you are listening to.

Shortcoming: When you don't know how to pronounce, you sit duck. May not good when you input sth you are reading.

FINAL COMMENTS:

There are always chance you can not input a character using wubi or pinyin. So the best solution is: choose your favorite Wubi, and choose your favorite Pinyin. Switch IME swiftly when you have to. That is what I do.

[ChouDoufu]

I started using Sogou's IME. They have both Wubi as well. It seems like many of the "native Chinese" (sounds somewhat odd to me, almost derogatory) in my workplace use it because it is quite good, has a large selection of technical dictionaries you can add on (including some for games like WoW!!), is skinnable (lots of skins!), and regularly updates (without having to have a sogou account--unlike google's IME). The major drawback is it might only have a Chinese interface (but I'm using it on a Chinese language system).

It's a feature packed alternative to Google.

[imron]

Yeah, but their Wubi isn't so great. It might take a few iterations before it comes up to speed.