Chinese keyboard layout

Chinese is considered one of the most difficult languages ​​in the world. This is due to the wide variety of characters and dialects that differ in each province. The Chinese language has about 40 thousand characters. This makes designing a universal keyboard difficult. However, there are ways to make writing Chinese easier.

What is unique about the Chinese keyboard?

Let's figure out what a Chinese keyboard looks like. Chinese characters are based on graphemes (mini-hieroglyphs), of which there are only 250 of them. This is what the keyboard is based on. To increase the sound (phonetic) capacity, the keys on a Chinese input device contain not 2-3 functions, but 8-9. Therefore, each button represents 8 graphemes, which increases the input capabilities of the device.

IMPORTANT! The biggest difficulty in writing is that some hieroglyphs can consist of 3-4 graphemes.

That is why symbols inevitably appear that will be typed with the same combination of buttons, but at the same time have completely different meanings. To avoid this, a sequence of 2 numbers was invented, one of which is used to indicate the number of the extreme line, the other to depict a group of characters.

Character groups

There are 4 groups in total.

• Basic. It uses only 5 traits and 25 symbols, which are the most frequently used.
• The second group consists of hieroglyphs, when depicting them there is a gap between the graphemes. For example, the character 苗 consists of two components: 艹 and 田
• The third group consists of symbols that include connected graphemes.
• Hieroglyphs whose graphemes overlap or intersect.

The last two groups are the most difficult to enter, since there are extremely many combinations of them. Therefore, choosing among all the options slows down your input speed.

Each of the most common graphemes has its own key, therefore, the process of writing basic symbols consists of the simultaneous combination of these graphemes.

REFERENCE! The system of 25 graphemes was originally created for the typewriter in 1946. However, this device never became widespread.

This happened due to the high price, which did not allow such a machine to be put into mass production. The device cost more than 12 thousand dollars.

Chinese keyboard layout on a computer

Unlike the European type keyboard, the Chinese version does not have function keys (F1 – F12). These buttons are used to switch registers. This was done to increase the capacity of symbols on devices of limited size.

How to type in Chinese

There are two ways to type in Chinese: graphic and phonetic.

Graphic method

The method is to enter text using graphemes. In this case, it is necessary to switch registers 7–8 times for a particular symbol. This process is very labor-intensive and requires a lot of concentration and attention.During the operation of the device, the manufacturers also noticed that there are 24 frequently used hieroglyphs. Therefore, the keyboard has a separate function for entering common characters.

The structured input method provides the highest input speed. However, the process of learning to enter information in this particular way is quite difficult due to the many combinations and registers.

Phonetic method

Phonetic input is much easier than graphical input and requires knowledge of transcription. When writing a text, it is not the hieroglyph that appears, but its transcription. Therefore, to generate a new text, the user needs to type not the character itself, but its pronunciation.

In order to facilitate the printing process, a special system was created - Pinyin. This system, like the famous T9, also automatically selects the desired word or sentence, but based on transcription. By entering the required word, the automated program itself will select a list of suitable hieroglyphs. And the user will only have to choose the appropriate one.

It is phonetic input that is used in the Windows system when entering text from a regular keyboard. This makes working in Chinese easier. And it allows you to avoid purchasing an additional keyboard to type in this language.

REFERENCE! There are also keyboards with a thousand buttons. They are used for manual typing of the necessary hieroglyphs.

However, these devices are not widely used because their production is very expensive and their functionality is limited.