I am currently learning how to type Chinese characters using Bopomofo and progress is slow.
I remember being told a while ago that in China they don’t use Bopomofo. Instead they use Hanpin. Is this true?
If so do they use Hanpin to input characters into a computer? I know that we are in Taiwan but does anyone have any answers?
Thanks
[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]I am currently learning how to type Chinese characters using Bopomofo and progress is slow.
I remember being told a while ago that in China they don’t use Bopomofo. Instead they use Hanpin. Is this true?
If so do they use Hanpin to input characters into a computer? I know that we are in Taiwan but does anyone have any answers?
Thanks[/quote]
pinyin input is a valid way to type Chinese. Its what I use. But your question is a bit skewed. No one uses Bopomofo for input in Taiwan except maybe for mobile phones. They use input methods based on graphalogical aspects such as cangjie or stroke order. I’m guessing its the same in China but with pinyin also used widely. No doubt Ironlady or someone else can enlighten us.
They use Pinyin in the mainland. They don’t use Bopomofo at all.
Very simple - type in the pinyin and then select the appropriate character from a drop down menu.
There are limitations - if your software does not contain certain characters it can be impossible to type them in. Hence the Chinese government has banned people from naming their children with any of the more esoteric characters that are not often found in the commonly used pinyin input software applications.
That doesn’t match my observations, though they are limited in this regard.
I type using Hanyu Pinyin input, with the IME that comes standard with MS systems. You just need to toggle some settings to adjust yours to this method.
[quote=“the bear”]No one uses Bopomofo for input in Taiwan except maybe for mobile phones.[/quote] My wife uses Zhuyin (Bopomofo) on computers. It’s what the keyboard has printed on it.
That’s the sucker punch right there. If you don’t have a Zhuyin keyboard, you’re farked with bopomo.
Interesting aside is how many Cantos I come across here in HK that have no way, except obviously quite recently, any other means of inputting characters except scratching them on an electronic pad. I’ll go one further and say that it’s one of the reasons so many HK Cantos now speak Mandarin.
HG
+1 to that. Use pinyin. bopomofo was only invented, as far as I can tell, because the Taiwanese wanted to do whatever the mainlanders weren’t doing. It’s bloody difficult to learn, and in any case each symbol maps 1:1 with a pinyin equivalent which is much easier to remember (for western-alphabet users, anyway). The Microsoft character prediction is spookily accurate at second-guessing what you want to type. You often don’t need to bother choosing from the dropdown.
Not really … if you’re not in Taiwan and can’t buy one from the 3C store, just find a picture on the internet and write on your keyboard with a CD marker. Or I’m sure somebody makes key stickers. The bopomofo IME will still work - there’s no physical difference in the keyboard electronics. Anyway, there’s another good reason for using pinyin 
A lot of people in Taiwan use bopomofo for input. Cangjie is popular, but takes a lot of training to be proficient. Certainly, most students I work with use bopomofo.
In the mainland they use Hanyu Pinyin. If you ask them if they know “bopomofo”, they often think you’re referring to Hanyu Pinyin. They simply do not use, and most don’t even know about, the bopomofo system used in Taiwan.
As for me, I use Hanyu Pinyin input.
In the land of China, they type very carefully.
yeah my bad then. I hate bopomofo so’s I is always slaggin’ it like. I was under the impression though that most office girls use cangjie because its faster. Once you memorize the combinations it means you take out the problem of too many homophones for words such as shi or yi.
I type using bopomofo with Eten key-mapping. This means ㄅ maps to ‘b’, ㄆ maps to ‘p’, ㄇ maps to ‘m’, although it does have its oddities. This mapping is included as part of Windows IME.
Mainlanders invented bopomofo and it predates Pinyin.
So this is where you’ve been hiding. How’s Canada these days? Still cold?
Definitely not true. All the Taiwanese people I know uses bpmf to type. I know a lot of people. My ‘older sister’ took a class to learn the other way, but after learning reverted back to using bpmf.
A few vendors at the Taipei computer mall sell them.
Definitely not true. All the Taiwanese people I know uses bpmf to type. I know a lot of people. My ‘older sister’ took a class to learn the other way, but after learning reverted back to using bpmf.[/quote]
yeah yeah i already said i was wrong…its funny tho’ I’m was sure most people here that do a lot of typing/word processing in their jobs use cangjie…anybody?
So this is where you’ve been hiding. How’s Canada these days? Still cold?[/quote]
I’m still waiting for global warming to kick into high gear. ← typed using bopomofo.
who cares about Chinese shit? SOOO last century. Cmon on.
Definitely not true. All the Taiwanese people I know uses bpmf to type. I know a lot of people. My ‘older sister’ took a class to learn the other way, but after learning reverted back to using bpmf.[/quote]
yeah yeah i already said I was wrong…its funny tho’ I’m was sure most people here that do a lot of typing/word processing in their jobs use cangjie…anybody?[/quote]
According to my observation, general computer users in Taiwan use zhuyin fuhao (bopomofo), but professional typists use character stroke input methods because you get the character you want right off instead of having to select from a list as you sometimes have to do with phonetic inputs. I guess pros on the mainland also use stroke inputs, while ordinary folk use Hanyu pinyin. There was a lightning-fast typist at one of my former companies who I think used “Dayi” (“big easy”), which I think is derived from Cangjie. Another quite popular one is Boshiamy, which I think is a kind of phonetic/stroke hybrid that Taiwanese people find easy to learn but which might not be so attractive for foreigners.
I have a book IN ENGLISH about how how to type in Cangjie. I haven’t seen an instructional book IN ENGLISH for any other stroke input method. The book is published in Taiwan but may be out of print. Try Eslite. When I tell Taiwanese people I want to learn Cangjie they usually seem surprised that I would want to learn something so hardcore, and suggest learning Boshiamy instead.
I’ve never got round to using the Cangjie book, so like most other foreigners I use the Microsoft input set on Hanyu pinyin. I can also type when it’s set on zhuyin fuhao, but very slowly. My girlfriend always goes psycho if I change the setting on her computer to pinyin and then forget to change it back when I’m finished.
She finds it such a chore to press CTRL-SHIFT a couple of times? Time for a merge with the 'Psycho Xiaojie" thread …? 