Chinese input methods: Typing Chinese characters
There are many different ways to type Chinese characters! You can type using phonetics, stroke order, roots, or even by manually writing the character on your screen. Having different input methods is useful for when you have only partial familiarity with the character you wish to type.
Below are some of the common input methods, available for both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
1. 主音 (Zhùyīn) or 拼音 (Pīnyīn) Input Methods
If you know the phonetics of a word, you can type Chinese using a Zhùyīn (注) or a Pīnyīn (拼) keyboard. Simply type the phonetics in order, and choose the appropriate character among the choices that appear (like with auto predicting text). In older versions, you will also need to indicate the tone, but this is not necessary for newer versions.
You don’t have to know exactly how to write the word, but you do need to have enough familiarity to choose the correct character from the list. As with other autopredict systems, the most common characters or phrases appear first, and may appear even before typing the entire phonetic. In newer versions like the one in the screenshot, there is also no need to stop to choose each character individually.
Below is the sample of typing the common greeting 你好 (Nǐ hǎo), literally “you” + “good”
Zhùyīn Input Method:
Pīnyīn Input Method:
(Conveniently, the pīnyīn keyboard looks exactly the same as a regular qwerty keyboard.)
*Note: As there’s no “ü” on the keyboard, letter “v” is used instead, since it’s the only English letter not used in pīnyīn.
2. 筆劃 / 笔画 (Bǐhuà), or "Stroke" Input Method
If you don’t know how a character is pronounced, but know how to write it, you can use the Bǐhuà, or Stroke Count Method, usually marked with the symbol 筆 (for traditional) or 笔 (for simplified).
Writing in Chinese follows a specific stroke order, and one limitation for this method is that the stroke order must be correct. So you really need to know how to write the character, and not just how it looks like. However, as with other auto predictive text, it’s usually not necessary to go through the entire stroke sequence for the desired character to appear as a suggestion.
Below is a sample of typing 我 (wǒ), the Chinese word for “me”. Note that the character already was suggested after the first stroke, but in the sample below, I completed the whole stroke sequence. (Also, apparently my setting uses Taiwanese stroke order, as seen in the link below)
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/我
Bǐhuà Input Method:
3. 倉頡 / 仓颉 (Cāngjié) Input Method (pronounced like "tsang dzie")
Another alternate system is the Cāngjié Input Method, marked with the symbol 倉, and normally used with Traditional Chinese. As with the Bǐhuà method, you don’t need to know how the character is pronounced, but you do need to know character composition before you can use this system. Some dictionaries or online sites like wiktionary include the character’s Cāngjié code.
Below is a sample typing the same character 我 (wǒ), which has the Cāngjié code 竹手戈 or HQI on the qwerty layout.
Cāngjié Input Method:
Update: As of March 2020, I started learning the 倉頡 Cāngjié method, using a YouTube source, which teaches by breaking down the learning process:
- Learn the 24 basic shapes
- Learn simple characters that use the basic shapes / Part B
- Learn the auxilliary shapes / Part B / Part C
- Learn the basic decomposition rules / Part B / Part C
- Learn the special shapes / Part B
- Practice and familiarize with examples to better understand how the rules are applied / Part B
Note that unlike the 筆劃 / 笔画 (Bǐhuà) or “Stroke” method, typing using 倉頡 Cāngjié does not always match writing strokes and sequence. However, for both typing methods, the correct sequence of codes must used.
While the 倉頡 Cāngjié typing method may have a steeper learning curve due to the structured rules, once mastered, it is known to be a quick way to type, as all Chinese characters can be typed with a maximum of 5 key presses (unlike Bǐhuà), and each sequence of codes represents a limited number of characters, with most codes representing a unique character (unlike Zhùyīn or Pīnyīn - For example, typing “HQI” using the 倉頡 Cāngjié method will only give two options (我 or 牫), while typing “wo” in Pīnyīn will give over fifty options).
4. 手寫 Handwriting / Mousewriting Input Method
As the name implies, this input method allows for free-hand writing of the Chinese character.
Below is a sample writing the word 愛 Simplified 爱 (ài) meaning “love”.
Chinese Handwriting Input Method:
Note that the handwriting doesn’t have to accurately match the character, and proper order of strokes doesn’t have to be followed. For example, the writing below, which looks pretty much nothing like the character 愛, is still recognized well enough.
Also, although the keyboard setting is to Traditional form, writing in Simplified form would still be recognized, and I assume this is true vice versa as well.
While you don’t have to know the correct stroke order, it would still help to be able to write the character quickly. A downside is that writing too slow would stop recognizing the succeeding strokes as still part of one character. Also, each character needs to be written one by one.
Personally, I find the Pīnyīn keyboard the easiest to use, and just switch to handwriting if I don’t know how the word is pronounced, or if I want to practice writing out the character. Choose the one, or ones, which would work best for you 
As of March 2020, I have been trying out Cāngjié, and I find it fun to use, though I sometimes have to look up the codes for words I can’t figure out yet.
Change log:
- Added note on letter “v” under the pinyin input method.
- Edited with dreamtimer.sourceforge.io/endecoder/
- Added notes and YouTube source for 倉頡 Cāngjié.
- Formatting and dividers