Quick newbie question -- why is jiao4 giving me 較?

[Lao Che]

I want 叫!

I'm having way more trouble setting up my computer to use Traditional Chinese than I expected.

Chinese PRC doesn't have a Traditional Chinese option on my computer for some reason, so I'm using Chinese Taiwan. According to several sources, Chinese Taiwan should work perfectly fine...

So am I making a really obvious mistake here or is something messed up?

Edit: If I switch to "Legacy IME" from "Intelligent IME" I'm given a list of possible characters to choose from, and mine is third on the list. Hmm.

[Yang Rui]

From your email I can't tell which input system you're using, but I've always found the simplest thing to do is download Google Pinyin Input. This lets you type in pinyin and switch easily between simplified and traditional characters. Most of the built-in input methods in Windows are a mystery to me.

[Lao Che]

The built-in inputs are actually fairly easy to setup. It's just a matter of going into the control panel, accessing the Fonts or Regions/Languages page, allowing support for East Asian characters, and then adding virtual keyboards. In the click of a button, you can go between an English keyboard and a Chinese keyboard. It seems simple enough - I just wish it was working correctly for me. I'm a complete beginner, though, so I'm wondering if I'm simply making a silly mistake.

I will check out Google's pinyin input, though, thank you.

edit:

Looks like the Google approach is very similar to Microsoft's with a few added benefits. It can't hurt too much to give it a try.

[imron]

with a few added benefits.

More than a few. The sentence prediction in Google's IME is far superior to that of Microsoft.

[roddy]

"jiao4"

Are you perhaps typing jiao4, and the IME is giving you a list of possibilities from jiao and then choosing the 4th when you hit 4? You don't (or at least I don't) usually type the tones.

[Lao Che]

Yes, I had assumed that you typed the tones after each syllable. The problem is, Chinese Taiwon doesn't list a group of characters to choose from. It simple shows a line of text above the word I've typed with a space after it "jiao_".

With google's pinyin input, it gives me a list of 4 options. In all cases I've checked so far, the options correspond with the tone. For example, xing1qi1 is 星期。Both the first option on the list... is that simply because they're the most common character?Ｉdidn't realize that's how it worked. This just got a whole lot more confusing for me .

起 床 qi3 chuang2 - these were third and second options on google's list.

I think I am learning how much the Chinese language depends on context

So yes, just a dumb newbie question. The Chinese Taiwon IME is a bit confusing since it doesn't list the character options, but besides that, it's doing nothing wrong. The only problem with this situation was my brain.

Iｈａｖｅ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｏｎｅ　ｆｉｎａｌ　ｑｕｅｓｔｉｏｎ　－　ｓｅｅ　ｔｈｉｓ？Why does Google's Pinyin Input like to do this to me?　Ｔｈｅ　ｆｏｎｔ　ｆｏｒｍａｔｉｎｇ　ｉｓ　ｓｏ　ａｎｎｏｙｉｎｇ．　Ｉｔ　ｓｅｅｍｓ　ｌｉｋｅ　ｓｏｍｅｔｉｍｅｓ　Ｉ＇ｌｌ　ｐｒｅｓｓ　ｓｈｉｆｔ　＋ a key and BOOM　Ｉ＇ｌｌ　ｈａｖｅ　ｓｔｒａｎｇｅ　ｆｏｒｍａｔｔｉｎｇ．　Ｉｔ　ｉｓ　ｈｉｇｈｌｙ　ａｎｎｏｙｉｎｇ．　Ｉｆ　ｔｈｅｒｅ＇ｓ　ａ　ｈｏｔｋｅｙ　Ｉshouldn't be touching or an option Iｃａｎ　ｕｓｅ　ｔｏ　ｔｕｒｎ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｏｆｆ　ａｌｔｏｇｅｔｈｅｒ．．．　ｐｌｅａｓｅ　ｔｅｌｌ　ｍｅ．　Ｔｈａｎｋ　ｙｏｕ．　

[johnd]

Chinese Taiwon doesn't list a group of characters to choose from

Is it possible that you have to press the left arrow key to view the list of characters to choose from, after you have typed "jiao" and pressed enter?

[Lao Che]

No, I typed jiao4. Unfortunately, pressing the spacebar doesn't bring up a list of characters for me.

However.

After typing jiao4 into Wordpad and using the "correction" button where you can change characters after they have been highlighted, it seems to have learned that the jiao4 Ｉwant is the jiao4 that means to be called. 叫. I'm learning right before your eyes.

Also, the weird spacing is a result of pressing shift + ｓｐａｃｅ.

[Yang Rui]

You don't need to type in any numbers for the tones. If you want to write 星期 just type xingqi. 星期 will be the first option because it is by far the commonest word with pinyin "xingqi". If you want a less common word which is also spelt xingqi, such as 刑期 you will have to select that one by pressing the cursor arrows.

The font formatting happens when the moon symbol is set to full moon (see the little icon next to where it either has 英 or 中）To type in normal fonts toggle this icon so that it shows a half moon.

When using Google Pinyin, pressing shift on its own toggles between typing in the Roman alphabet and typing in Chinese characters.

Just play around with it for a while and a lot will become clear.

[imron]

Shift-space toggles between half-width and full-width characters, i.e. the characters with weird spacing. The weird spacing option is there because normally Chinese characters are all the same size and use the same sized spacing.

e.g. with the two lines:

一二三四

甲乙丙丁

you can see that each character lines up perfectly against the character above/underneath it.

Compare this with English:

1234

ABCD

which tends to use non-proportional fonts/spacing.

So, the full-width characters are a way to ensure that the layout of a page stays consistent, even if you are mixing English and Chinese, e.g.

１２３４

一二三四

ＡＢＣＤ

甲乙丙丁

and not:

1234

一二三四

ABCD

甲乙丙丁

[imron]

起 床 qi3 chuang2 - these were third and second options on google's list.

Unfortunate coincidence The position of the characters will also change over time, depending on which ones you use more. Most pinyin IMEs don't consider tones as part of their input.

[davidj]

On Windows XP, the Chinese (PRC) input method does support Traditional. You need to enable the language bar (right click on the status bar icon and select Restore Language Bar), then make sure that you have the Charset option enabled (click on extreme bottom right of language bar). Tested for Microsoft Pinyin IME 3.0.

[trien27]

Microsoft was worse when Gates was here. Now that he's no longer CEO, it gets even worse. I've used IME Chinese-Taiwan many times. I use Zhuyin Fuhao, aka Bopomofo. That's if I need Traditional characters. If I need Simplified characters, I'd use Chinese- PRC. I know Pinyin. Yet, sometimes I get the correct character as I'm typing on my computer screen, but when I submit it to MSN or some message board, it would sometimes give the wrong characters AFTER I pressed the SEND or SUBMIT button! There's definitely a glitch somewhere?! I wish I could use the Chinese software in Linux. That way, I won't need to restart and go back to Windows every time I need to type in Chinese.

[querido]

"I wish I could use the Chinese software in Linux"

Why can't you? Last time I had SCIM installed, it worked perfectly. Some tools like ZDT?, Dimsum?, etc. have built-in IMEs too.

[calibre2001]

To add further to davidj's comment, you can input traditional characters using pinyin without needing to type in the tone. For a lazy bummer like me, that's a definite plus since I avoid thinking in terms of tone.

[Hofmann]

Sogou and Google are much better than Microsoft. Sogou's extra stuff like stroke order input and radical input are also nice, although they don't always work.

[ABCinChina]

I always accidentally click shift + space which gets quite annoying. I've tried to find ways to disable this function with no luck.

BTW, if you're using pinyin to type Traditional Chinese, Sogou is better than Google since it gets more Traditional characters correct. You'll quickly find out that Google will get some Traditional words such as 什麽, 頭髮, 這裡, etc. incorrect.

[Lao Che]

First of all, thanks for the help and the suggestions. I sorted most of this out on my own, but the alternate IMEs and other advice has been quite helpful.

I always accidentally click shift + space which gets quite annoying. I've tried to find ways to disable this function with no luck

I can tell you how to disable it for the Chinese Taiwan IME anyway... right click the language bar and go into settings. This will take you to the menu where you choose the default language and which keyboards/input languages you would like to use. Click "key settings." A window will open with all of the hotkeys for each input method. Scroll down to Chinese Taiwon or Chinese PRC (or whichever it is you want to change) and find "Ime/NonIme Toggle". As you know, its default setting is shift + space. Click on it and you will be able to change the "key sequence" aka hotkeys.

Hope that explanation wasn't too convoluted.