Learning Cang Jie, advantages and disadvantages

[Eulloba]

Hi! my name is Eugenio, I live in Madrid, Spain, and I think there is nothing so beautiful in the whole wide world as CHINESE CHARACTERS (specially the traditional ones).

My question is the following:

I am learning to type Chinese by the Cang Jie inputting method.

Considering that so many things are changing so rapidly in the computer science, could you please advise me whether is it or not worthwhile to learn this inputting method.

I do not like the pin yin method, but in any case there is nothing to learn about it all you have to do is to konow the pronunciation of characters in pin yin.

I love the philosophy behind the Cang Jie method and so I would like to know if you could recommend this to me or whether there are other inputting methods based on the shape of characters, rather than in just the pronunciation.

Thank you very much, and I am very much looking forward to your advice.

Eugenio.

[zhwj]

There are several posts on various input methods on the forums that you can find through searching, but basically, it all boils down to two things:

1) Any method will take practice to get up to speed. Some may be more difficult in the beginning (especially versus pinying), but for serious typists, the ultimate speed is pretty much the same across all methods, once the various shortcuts are taken into account.

2) You want to be able to type wherever you go. You could learn the most cutting-edge, scientifically-based input method available, but if few computers actually have it installed, you'll end up typing with something unfamiliar anytime you leave your own machine. This could be acceptable to you, but it's your own choice.

On measure 2, Cangjie is available on pretty much any machine that has traditional character input installed.

[Eulloba]

Dear zhwj,

Thank you very much for your very for your sensible and well-balanced advice, it has been most helpful to me.

Eugenio Llorente.