5 ms·

If people normally enter characters in their phone or computer rather than actually handwriting, then there is no reason to keep remembering all of the characte

by ilaksh 2y ago

If people normally enter characters in their phone or computer rather than actually handwriting, then there is no reason to keep remembering all of the character details. Just like it doesn't matter that I frequently am uncertain about spelling for some words because we have spell check built into everything. Do Chinese usually use pinyin to enter characters or what is the normal method? Whatever it is, they don't need to remember the character strokes apparently.

nneonneo 2y ago
Some older folks, particularly those with regional accents or less Pinyin education, stick with handwriting input (which was surprisingly good even ~20 years ago) - drawing the characters with a stylus or a finger. Most folks these days use Pinyin. The T9 input method (Pinyin, but using a nine-key telephone pad) is popular with folks who grew up using dumbphones. Finally, voice input is really popular in China. Lots of folks send texts (on WeChat) as short voice messages. WeChat even has a feature to auto-transcribe these voice messages.
- euroderf 2y ago
  But Pinyin is based on pronunciation, which varies across China. So Pinyin is based on Putonghua ? So Pinyin reinforces the role of putonghua as a project of national unification ? And the pre-eminent role of Beijing ?
  - throw-the-towel 2y ago
    Exactly.
joshdavham 2y ago
> Do Chinese usually use pinyin to enter characters or what is the normal method? In mainland China, it’s pinyin, but in Taiwan, they often use Bopomofo: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo
- bonzini 2y ago
  Either way it's phonetic; it's not based on either the radicals or the strokes. Even though there are input methods that use those, they are not commonly used.
  - robjan 2y ago
    There are other input methods such as Cangjie or Sucheng which are also popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong. They have much faster WPM since they are based on the structure of the characters. Pre-smartphone there was a Q9 input method with one stroke mapped to each of 8 numbers and a wildcard for if you forgot.
    - xyzsparetimexyz 2y ago
      I doubt that they're faster than pinyin. With pinyin you can type e.g. 'wmdl' and instantly enter '我们到了'.
bigstrat2003 2y ago
> Just like it doesn't matter that I frequently am uncertain about spelling for some words because we have spell check built into everything. But it does matter that you don't know the spelling for some words. For one, you don't always have a computer to fix it for you. For two, the computer's spelling is often wrong and you need the human knowledge to fill that gap.
- anal_reactor 2y ago
  > For one, you don't always have a computer to fix it for you. You can't be serious. I thought that the "you need to be good at algebra because you won't have a calculator in your pocket" argument died out naturally. I can't recall the last time I actually made hand-written notes. > For two, the computer's spelling is often wrong and you need the human knowledge to fill that gap. It happens to me once a month that the computer cannot recognize a correctly spelled word, and virtually never in English.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    > You can't be serious. I thought that the "you need to be good at algebra because you won't have a calculator in your pocket" argument died out naturally. I can't recall the last time I actually made hand-written notes. Then you are an extreme outlier. Most people write plenty of things down by hand in their day to day life. And there's no reason for the argument to die out, because it's completely correct. > It happens to me once a month that the computer cannot recognize a correctly spelled word, and virtually never in English. Again, this seems like an outlier. False positives and false negatives are both quite common in spell checkers.
    - anal_reactor 2y ago
      > Then you are an extreme outlier. If that were the case then the problem described in the article would be limited to just a few outliers like me. But it's not. > Again, this seems like an outlier. No u. The fact that you are on this website means that you most likely are educated, therefore you are likely to use uncommon words unknown to the spellchecker. Most people focus on just a handful of basic words needed for everyday life, and besides that, very few people actually care about correct spelling. All of my friends have at least college degree and 50% of them pay zero attention to correct spelling, I can only assume that average Joe cares even less.

by ilaksh 2y ago

nneonneo 2y ago

Some older folks, particularly those with regional accents or less Pinyin education, stick with handwriting input (which was surprisingly good even ~20 years ago) - drawing the characters with a stylus or a finger. Most folks these days use Pinyin. The T9 input method (Pinyin, but using a nine-key telephone pad) is popular with folks who grew up using dumbphones. Finally, voice input is really popular in China. Lots of folks send texts (on WeChat) as short voice messages. WeChat even has a feature to auto-transcribe these voice messages.

euroderf 2y ago
But Pinyin is based on pronunciation, which varies across China. So Pinyin is based on Putonghua ? So Pinyin reinforces the role of putonghua as a project of national unification ? And the pre-eminent role of Beijing ?
- throw-the-towel 2y ago
  Exactly.

joshdavham 2y ago

> Do Chinese usually use pinyin to enter characters or what is the normal method? In mainland China, it’s pinyin, but in Taiwan, they often use Bopomofo: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo

bonzini 2y ago
Either way it's phonetic; it's not based on either the radicals or the strokes. Even though there are input methods that use those, they are not commonly used.
- robjan 2y ago
  There are other input methods such as Cangjie or Sucheng which are also popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong. They have much faster WPM since they are based on the structure of the characters. Pre-smartphone there was a Q9 input method with one stroke mapped to each of 8 numbers and a wildcard for if you forgot.
  - xyzsparetimexyz 2y ago
    I doubt that they're faster than pinyin. With pinyin you can type e.g. 'wmdl' and instantly enter '我们到了'.

bigstrat2003 2y ago

> Just like it doesn't matter that I frequently am uncertain about spelling for some words because we have spell check built into everything. But it does matter that you don't know the spelling for some words. For one, you don't always have a computer to fix it for you. For two, the computer's spelling is often wrong and you need the human knowledge to fill that gap.

anal_reactor 2y ago
> For one, you don't always have a computer to fix it for you. You can't be serious. I thought that the "you need to be good at algebra because you won't have a calculator in your pocket" argument died out naturally. I can't recall the last time I actually made hand-written notes. > For two, the computer's spelling is often wrong and you need the human knowledge to fill that gap. It happens to me once a month that the computer cannot recognize a correctly spelled word, and virtually never in English.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  > You can't be serious. I thought that the "you need to be good at algebra because you won't have a calculator in your pocket" argument died out naturally. I can't recall the last time I actually made hand-written notes. Then you are an extreme outlier. Most people write plenty of things down by hand in their day to day life. And there's no reason for the argument to die out, because it's completely correct. > It happens to me once a month that the computer cannot recognize a correctly spelled word, and virtually never in English. Again, this seems like an outlier. False positives and false negatives are both quite common in spell checkers.
  - anal_reactor 2y ago
    > Then you are an extreme outlier. If that were the case then the problem described in the article would be limited to just a few outliers like me. But it's not. > Again, this seems like an outlier. No u. The fact that you are on this website means that you most likely are educated, therefore you are likely to use uncommon words unknown to the spellchecker. Most people focus on just a handful of basic words needed for everyday life, and besides that, very few people actually care about correct spelling. All of my friends have at least college degree and 50% of them pay zero attention to correct spelling, I can only assume that average Joe cares even less.