4 ms·

Not sure if it is a new system or an implementation of an existing one. There are already a few existing ones [0] (no English translation). They are great for

by jxy 10y ago

Not sure if it is a new system or an implementation of an existing one. There are already a few existing ones [0] (no English translation). They are great for people who can't speak the official Chinese language properly, which is more than 80% of the population in China (or > 90% world wide), to whom pronunciation based input systems are impossible to grasp. [0] https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/字形输入法 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/字形输入法 The efficiency of such input methods depend much on one's proficiency, and also the compression ratio of the encoding. After some practice, these methods beat pronunciation base methods easily, as the codes are shorter and with less degeneracy. On the other hand, all the cell phones have the basic Wubihua [1] that uses only five keys to encode the order of how you would write a character. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubihua_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubihua_method

natch 10y ago
As you indirectly suggest, it really depends who the user is. Especially when you say these methods beat pronunciation-based methods, I think it's important to qualify that as something that depends on the specific user. For a touch typist and an only semi-literate (emphasis on semi) non-native speaker, the ability to go straight to touch typing of pinyin with absolutely no learning curve is a HUGE advantage over other systems. By contrast, this system does not leverage my existing typing ability at all, so its ultimate speed is gated by the fact that I will never bother to use and learn it. For users like me, the same is true of other such systems. The point is just that theoretical speed comparisons are moot for some people if practical matters make one system more useful. Speaking of moot, it seems to me that all our points may be moot as voice input is going to be an ever growing proportion of how text is entered. Especially in Chinese languages.

by jxy 10y ago

natch 10y ago

As you indirectly suggest, it really depends who the user is. Especially when you say these methods beat pronunciation-based methods, I think it's important to qualify that as something that depends on the specific user. For a touch typist and an only semi-literate (emphasis on semi) non-native speaker, the ability to go straight to touch typing of pinyin with absolutely no learning curve is a HUGE advantage over other systems. By contrast, this system does not leverage my existing typing ability at all, so its ultimate speed is gated by the fact that I will never bother to use and learn it. For users like me, the same is true of other such systems. The point is just that theoretical speed comparisons are moot for some people if practical matters make one system more useful. Speaking of moot, it seems to me that all our points may be moot as voice input is going to be an ever growing proportion of how text is entered. Especially in Chinese languages.