Typing in pinyin irritation

[YordLama]

I know this might seem like a really specific complaint, but I find it really annoying that 'shift' is the button that switches between pinyin and normal roman letters in Windows' simplified Chinese. I'm always switching to pinyin when I'm just trying to capitalise something. In another language I've typed with on windows (Korean) it's 'alt' that switches between scripts. Does anyone know if I can change it to this with Chinese or download some good third party keyboard thing instead that does likewise?

[889]

On both Windows Chinese and Google Pinyin there's an option to set CTRL insteasd of SHIFT for the switching. It's inside the Language settings. Repost if you need help finding it.

[YordLama]

Ok great, I found it. Thanks! Still would have liked the option to change it to ALT, but CTRL is OK.

[AaronUK]

@YordLama Hi, I have two 'keyboards' set up in my windows, one english language and the other is pinyin.

 

If I press alt and shift it will switch between them. When I am in the Pinyin keyboard it will let me write romanised characters by pressing shift only. So I have two options, to use the chinese keyboard and switch between chinese characters and romanised characters with shift, or I can switch between my english keyboard and chinese keyboard with alt and shift.

 

I don't know if that would help you？

[imron]

This is the way I do it to when I use Windows.  I use the Chinese keyboard in Chinese mode only and the English keyboard in English mode only.

[Publius]

Agree with above.

You should have either English - US keyboard or Chinese (Simplified) - US keyboard installed and set default input language to that.

Then use Ctrl+Space to switch between English and Chinese. It is supported by all Chinese IMEs.

Or you can use Alt+Shift to switch language, Ctrl+Shift to switch keyboard within a language. It's independent of IME.

The hotkey Shift (can be reconfigured to use Ctrl) defined by Chinese IMEs is for temporarily disabling keyboard translation so you can type a short phrase in English, not for prolonged use.

[歐博思]

Or if you're like me and play any PC games, then even some of the above alternative shortcuts can still trigger at inopportune times. In that case and if you have Windows 8 or above, I'd recommend defaulting your Chinese input method to Chinese characters, and switching to English input with Win+Space. This totally switches input languages and not just 'language within a language'. EZ.

[YordLama]

Thanks for the tips. It's annoying, but I think i'll just stick with the control hotkey to shift for now. It's better than before. I have the pinyin input keyboard off this website, a korean keyboard, and windows randomly decides to throw in different English keyboards for reasons I can't quite figure out, so moving between different languages is a bit fiddly.