Lesson 11 - How to Type in Chinese

Ever wondered how Chinese people type?  Do they have strange keyboards with keys for each stroke?  Not at all!  It's actually easier than you might think.

Chinese people use the exact same keyboard as in America, as opposed to other countries (like France where the keyboard is called "AZERTY" instead of "QWERTY").

To type Chinese characters, all you really need to do is to type the pinyin.  The options for which character you want to include come up below and you select your option.

If you don't already have Chinese available to you easily on your computer, you can follow the easy steps on this site (it shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes to set it up).

For Windows:
http://www.wikihow.com/Add-Another-Language-to-Your-Computer-Keyboard

For Mac:
http://www.wikihow.com/Change-the-Keyboard-Language-of-a-Mac

Here is an example of what you would do to type 你好.

Something to keep in mind is that typing a spacebar selects the highlighted option.  If you want, say, option number 4, you can do several things.  You can use the arrow keys to move to the side or you can type "4" on your keyboard and it will be selected.

What if your option is not in the first 9 characters?  All you need to do is press on the "down" arrow key to go to the next "page" of characters below.

Another great thing about typing in Chinese is that you don't need to worry about those tricky tones!  You just need to know how to spell the word.  You still need to know tones for conversation purposes, so don't completely ignore them, but this cuts you some slack.  

Say you want to write a long sentence.  Do I have to select each word individually?  Nope!  If your are lucky, you can type an entire sentence with only one selection.  Here's an example:

Can you remember what this means?

Like always, the best way to learn is to practice, so make sure you practice using this once in a while to get the hang of it.  At first you may be really slow, but worry not!  You are sure to get much faster.

Exercise:

Try typing this in Chinese with your new keyboard settings.

- My name is 小王 (xiao3 wang3).

- My dog's name is 小黑 (xiao3 hei1).

- How are you?

Best of luck!

Answers to exercise (no peeking!):

- 我叫小王。

- 我的狗的名字是小黑。

- 你好吗？

Family

Family members are sort of important, wouldn't you agree?  So let's learn how to talk about them!  Let's start off with some basic vocab:

家庭 jia1 ting2

family

爸爸 ba4 ba5

dad

妈妈 ma1 ma5

mom

哥哥 ge4 ge5

older brother

弟弟 di4 di5

younger brother

姐姐 jie3 jie5

older sister

妹妹 mei4 mei5

younger sister

爷爷 ye2 ye5

father's dad

奶奶 nai3 nai5

father's mom

外公 wai4 gong1

mother's dad

外婆 wai4 po2

mother's mom

You probably noticed that there are different words for grandparents depending on whose parents they are.  China is one of those countries with tons of names just for family members, although you don't need to know all of them in order to get by.  Just knowing the ones above is enough.

Another important thing to notice is that often, the names are repeats of the same word, only the second time, the tone becomes neutral.  Chinese people realize it is hard to say the same tone twice in a row (especially third tone!).  So they have agreed that the repeated word would use the neutral tone to make it easier to pronounce instead of whatever other tone it may be using.  

In fact, since this is the correct way to pronounce these words, don't try to overachieve, since native Chinese speakers will look at you funny.  (Exactly what happened to me!)  If you want to sound more like a native, make sure to use the neutral tone.

Want a cool exercise?  Try to name all the members in the families in the pictures above!  See if you can do it again, but this time while covering the list.  Can you do it?  

If you want how to address someone I didn't mention here, check out this fun website!

http://www.mandarintools.com/family.html

再见！