IME (?) Keyboard for pinyin entry of chinese character

[ziggy]

Maybe this question has already been asked, but I didn't find it in the forum.
What is the best way to enter chinese words (characters) in their pinyin form, for emails, etc.. ? I do that on my Windows PC (IME keybord..?), but how do you do it on an Android device ?
Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[alex_hk90]

I use TouchPal as I find its IME the best for English (it has both sliding and predicting current and next words), and it also has Chinese Pinyin and Handwriting language packs that work well for me.

 

[ziggy]

Thank you Alex for your response.

I have read somewhere that TouchPal was realtively heavy and not so effective ; have you ever tested Goodl IME or Sogou ? (the latter having a good repsort here - sorry in French : http://www.chine-informations.com/forum ... 37542.html)

I think that a keyboard probably cannot be perfect for all ; for example, when switching from pinyin writing to French, I need letters with accents (é, è,ù etc..), whils English native speakers don't. Nevertheless sharing experience would be useful.

 

[LantauMan]

I've been using Swype, which was the ideal companion to Pleco, until Swype developers buggered up the latest beta version. (Many devices have a stable release version built in, but mine doesn't so I'm stuck with the beta).

You slide your finger around instead of tapping, which for me more than quadruples my writing speed on a little phone. I can practically use Pleco in real time as I'm conversing in Chinese, swiping in either English or pinyin nearly as fast as words are spoken. Works equally well with either English or Chinese. You can download and install both simplified and traditional Chinese language packs, and input all your text as pinyin, and it predicts the characters you need. If your device has a built-in version of Swype (take a look on yours--some people don't even realize it's there as an option), then I strongly recommend it, because it won't be the latest beta, and therefore it will work. If you don't have it preinstalled, then you're out of luck. Then you're stuck with the latest beta, in which they broke everything good about it. They said the next update may not be for another six months. :evil:

 

[alex_hk90]

Thank you Alex for your response.

You're welcome.

I have read somewhere that TouchPal was realtively heavy and not so effective ; have you ever tested Goodl IME or Sogou ? (the latter having a good repsort here - sorry in French : http://www.chine-informations.com/forum ... 37542.html)

TouchPal is probably a bit heavy for an IME, but it runs fine for me (on my old HTC Desire).

I think that a keyboard probably cannot be perfect for all ; for example, when switching from pinyin writing to French, I need letters with accents (é, è,ù etc..), whils English native speakers don't. Nevertheless sharing experience would be useful.

I haven't used the French language pack for TouchPal, but the language switching is done by a single button press in the bottom-left corner, so it should be very fast to go from French to Pinyin and vice-versa.

 

[ziggy]

I have enabled Swype on my device settings, and will try it.
At first glance it seems excellent when the next letter is visible whilst typing the current one, but I am unable to type correctly when the next letter to type is hidden by my fingers (say J or L after E)... hum, maybe it comes with some experience...
- how do you do with doubble leTTers ?

Thank you, to both of you, for your tips and advice.
ML

 

[LantauMan]

I have enabled Swype on my device settings, and will try it.
At first glance it seems excellent when the next letter is visible whilst typing the current one, but I am unable to type correctly when the next letter to type is hidden by my fingers (say J or L after E)... hum, maybe it comes with some experience...
- how do you do with doubble leTTers ?

Thank you, to both of you, for your tips and advice.
ML

Check the instructions videos for using Swype. You will get the hang of it, regarding the placement of letters. Took me a day or two to get used to it, and now I wish I had a big Swype keyboard instead of those clacking keys for my desktop computer.

To double letters, you simply swirl your finger around in a circle over the letter to be doubled.

http://www.swype.com/tips/swype-basics/

To get the Chinese language pack, go to Swype settings/Language settings. One of the great things about Chinese, which Swype doesn't offer in English, is next-word prediction. Thus, you can enter the pinyin for suǒ and you'll get 所 then immediately see the suggestion for the most common subsequent characters, such as 以. And shortcuts. Swype in NH and you'll get 你好

 

[ziggy]

Thank you, this sounds very interesting.
Unfortunately, my built-in Android / Swype keyboard doesn't seem to support Chinese/pynin ; for some reason, in the language choice, I have several non-roman alphabet languages like russian, Indonesian (?), but not Chinese. This is both for the normal aphabetic capture and for the Swype mode.
I may have to install Google IME to make it available.

 

[LantauMan]

Thank you, this sounds very interesting.
Unfortunately, my built-in Android / Swype keyboard doesn't seem to support Chinese/pynin ; for some reason, in the language choice, I have several non-roman alphabet languages like russian, Indonesian (?), but not Chinese. This is both for the normal aphabetic capture and for the Swype mode.
I may have to install Google IME to make it available.

Google IME will make no difference with Swype. Maybe your built-in version is an older one, version 2.x. I know for certain that versions 3.2x have Chinese available. My wife's Samsung tablet has pre-installed Swype, version 3.26, and it definitely has Chinese.

It's a shame, however, that due to Swype's business practices, you can't update any pre-installed version, since it comes with the manufacturer's or carrier's operating system.

In any case, with English Swype you can still use Pleco and enter pinyin. Hint: go to Swype preferences and turn off Auto-correction; that way, any words, such as pinyin, typed in letter-by-letter will not be turned into strange English words. Auto-correction will not affect English words that are entered by swyping (sliding finger around), it only affects letter-by-letter typing. So you can have the brilliance of swyped words in English and still be able to enter pinyin in Pleco.

Sorry if I sound like a salesman for Swype. In fact, I'm so pissed off at them right now for totally breaking their once-fine app, that I'm searching for an alternative. I wish I had a preinstalled version like you have, but I'm stuck with their breathtakingly awful new beta.

 

[ziggy]

Hello, LantauMan.

I actually have Swype V 3.26.92.38235 (!) on my Galaxy S2. Currently testing it with French, English and pinyin.
I did download Google IME, and now my keybord does convert pinyin entries into chinese characters. I'll test it and compare with other methods like Touchpal.

Regarding older versions of Swype, regardless of Swype's policiyes, have you tried to ask on Android forums, somebody may have the old app and could either send you the file ; as far as I know, an Android application is in an ".apk" file that you can back-up / copy and transfer to another smartphone / tablet.

 

[LantauMan]

That's good information to know regarding the Google IME. As for the older versions of Swype apk, I have indeed installed it. But since the only one available is the beta, the older stable version expires in November. I'll look forward to learning your experiences with other keyboards using Pleco.

 

[ziggy]

Hello,

I have an un expected issue : since on my Samsung Galaxy S2, (recent French Rom version) I don't have Chinese or Pinyin in the list of keyboard languages, I though that installing Google Pinyin and Swype would allow me to use Swype to enter Chginese characters through pinyin, but alas : Swype only matches with the Samsung-listed languages.
I therefore have to chose either "Pinyin Keyboard" and tap characters one by one, or Swype keyboard and then I can pick English, French or other Samsung-listed languages.. but not Pinyin/Chinese.

I wonder whether anyone has had the same frustrating problem ? :?:

 

[ipsi]

You can install the latest version of the Swype Beta (http://www.swype.com, note that you cannot get it via the Market) even if it came pre-installed on your device - the two will happily live side-by-side (or so Swype claims - it didn't come pre-installed on my device). Once you've installed the latest version of Swype, you can then install Chinese support via Settings / Language and Input / Swype Beta / Language Options / Download Languages, and hunting for Chinese, which will be down the very bottom. After that, you can happily Swype in Chinese (have confirmed this on my device).

 

[ziggy]

Hi Ipsi,
Thank you for the information ; I will try this ... Would you please ket me know which device / version of firmware you are using ?
Have you noted any bugs / unexpected behaviours so far ?

 

[ipsi]

SGS 3, stock international firmware, ICS. The only issue I've seen so far is that it doesn't work properly with Chrome on Android - cursor tends to jump around unexpectedly, and you find yourself adding or deleting text in the middle of a word. Also has issues with a couple of other apps, but by and large it works fine.

 

[ziggy]

Thank you very much. Here are my observations :

I downloaded Swype Beta. I installed it. I could see it in my Titanium Backup list of applications, but it doesn't seem to be working since I still have only three options of keyboard : Samsung, 拼音, and Swype... which, when selected, says "version 3.26.92.3825" - the one I had before "installing" (or so I thought) the Beta...

Also, as I expected, Chinese Pinyin still doesn't show in the list fo languages, neither in the Samsung regular "settings" menu, nor in the Swype language settings.

After a few investigations, I uninstalled it. It may not work with my particular device / configuration.
Oh well, anyway I never understood why I can't seen Chinese or Pinyin Chinese (but Korean, Russian, Greek..) in my Samsung language lists.

 

[LantauMan]

You can install the latest version of the Swype Beta (http://www.swype.com, note that you cannot get it via the Market) even if it came pre-installed on your device - the two will happily live side-by-side (or so Swype claims - it didn't come pre-installed on my device). Once you've installed the latest version of Swype, you can then install Chinese support via Settings / Language and Input / Swype Beta / Language Options / Download Languages, and hunting for Chinese, which will be down the very bottom. After that, you can happily Swype in Chinese (have confirmed this on my device).

I strongly recommend that you do not install the latest Swype beta. The developer was purchased by another company, which has essentially thrown away Swype, taken the brand name and applied it to an older, inferior keyboard they originally created: FlexT9. It has major performance and stability problems, in particular with the Chinese keyboard, and they removed all of Swype's most popular features in favor of awkward, throwback features of FlexT9. Confusingly, the latest "Swype" beta is version 1, whereas the previous, stable (real Swype) beta was 3.26. If you can find the apk for that beta--specifically 3.26.92D.39062--it will last you through November. It has a very good Chinese pinyin input.

I pray that Pleco is not purchased by a big corporation, though it might make Mike Love wealthy. It is far and away the best app of any kind--not just dictionaries--that I have ever used on an Android device. I'd hate to see it screwed up the same way every other independently-developed application is when gobbled up by big guys.

 

[LantauMan]

Thank you very much. Here are my observations :

I downloaded Swype Beta. I installed it. I could see it in my Titanium Backup list of applications, but it doesn't seem to be working since I still have only three options of keyboard : Samsung, 拼音, and Swype... which, when selected, says "version 3.26.92.3825" - the one I had before "installing" (or so I thought) the Beta...

Also, as I expected, Chinese Pinyin still doesn't show in the list fo languages, neither in the Samsung regular "settings" menu, nor in the Swype language settings.

After a few investigations, I uninstalled it. It may not work with my particular device / configuration.
Oh well, anyway I never understood why I can't seen Chinese or Pinyin Chinese (but Korean, Russian, Greek..) in my Samsung language lists.

The latest Swype beta can be installed alongside OEM versions. In the keyboard list, the latest one will be called "Swype beta", while the preinstalled version is simply "Swype". I can't answer the question about seeing Chinese Pinyin. My option in Swype simply says Chinese (ZH), which uses a mainly English keyboard, from which I can swype pinyin.

 

[mikelove]

I pray that Pleco is not purchased by a big corporation, though it might make Mike Love wealthy. It is far and away the best app of any kind--not just dictionaries--that I have ever used on an Android device. I'd hate to see it screwed up the same way every other independently-developed application is when gobbled up by big guys.

It absolutely won't be in the next few years at least, for a very simple reason: my newly-minted wife and I are working on a family, and until our putative future offspring are safely enrolled in preschool it is extremely, extremely useful for Pleco to continue to be small enough that I can work from home most days. The amount of money that a potential acquirer would have to pay to convince me to give that up (potential benefits for said offspring notwithstanding) is about three orders of magnitude more than any realistic assessment of what Pleco is worth.

The same is true for quite a lot of mobile app developers, actually - Instapaper creator Marco Arment is perhaps the most prominent example; if you're a talented developer at that particular point in your life it's a very appealing field to get into, though since I've been running Pleco for 10+ years now I can't claim that it was a consideration in my case. (just a recently-noticed perk)

 

[ziggy]

LautauMan you seem to be right.
Swype now seems to have customer unfriendly policies. How can they only offer to download the Beta, whilst acknowledging that, as any Beta, it does have bugs and issues !? ...At least, that's what I see on their website ; maybe because it's a new owner, and as you say, they want to get rid of the previous versions, but it seems absurd, so there must be some explanation, maybe "big money" behind it - maybe they don't have bought the right to use previous versions, but only the name and some other assets.

I have been trying Swype (3.26.92.38235) for only a few days now, and I can already say that I am impressed. I never thought I could type the longest French word "anticonstitutionnellement" (26 characters) so quickly - and without mistakes since the autocorrect works rather well. It seems that the "logical engine" of the software tolerates easily many approximative spellings, both in English, French, Italian and Spanish.

It's therefore a pity that I can't find Chinese Pinyin ! However, being a true beginner in Chinese, I can't say that speed really matters for the moment !

Anyhow, congratulations to Mike for the work done with Pleco during the last ten years. In my opinion, Pleco is the best !
I hope there will be a French version ! :mrgreen: