Re: recommended Chinese input methods in emacs?

[LEE Sau Dan <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>]

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>>>>> "Benjamin" == Benjamin Rutt <rutt.4+news@osu.edu> writes:

    Benjamin> The version of GNU Emacs I'm running comes with the
    Benjamin> following chinese input methods:

    Benjamin> chinese-4corner chinese-array30 chinese-b5-quick
    Benjamin> chinese-b5-tsangchi chinese-ccdospy chinese-cns-quick
    Benjamin> chinese-cns-tsangchi chinese-ctlau chinese-ctlaub
    Benjamin> chinese-ecdict chinese-etzy chinese-punct
    Benjamin> chinese-punct-b5 chinese-py chinese-py-b5
    Benjamin> chinese-py-punct chinese-py-punct-b5 chinese-qj
    Benjamin> chinese-qj-b5 chinese-sw chinese-tonepy
    Benjamin> chinese-tonepy-punct chinese-ziranma chinese-zozy

    Benjamin> Can someone recommend one or two of these input methods

It's up  to you, your own  taste and personal  preference.  That's why
there are so many there to choose from.


    Benjamin> as being either the easiest one to learn 

Well...  if  you speak  Mandarin (or something  close) as  your mother
tongue  and  you have  learnt  Pinyin,  then chinese-tonepy-punct  and
chinese-py-punct-b5  would be  the easiest.   If you  speak Cantonese,
then chinese-ctlaub and chinese-ctlau would be easy IF you're familiar
with the C.T. Lau Romanization of Cantonese.


    Benjamin> and/or the one that leads to the highest productivity in
    Benjamin> the long run, for a native Chinese speaker?

Cangjie (for  traditional characters).   It is ubiquitous  on computer
systems  supporting   traditional  characters  (Big5   encoding).   It
requires some training.  Once trained, you can easily get to 20+ chars
per minute.   Professional typists can  reach 40 or 60.   Some wizards
are  reported to  type  at 200  chars  per minute!   This is  possible
because Canjie  is shape-based, and  hence doesn't need to  go through
the  shape->sound->code  process  when   one  types.   It's  a  direct
shape->code translation.  So, touch-typing is possible.

If  you want  some speed  but  don't want  to spend  time on  training
yourself, try  chinese-4corner.  It is shape-based, too.   So, you can
enter characters  even when you don't  know how to  pronounce it.  You
need to  learn the "4-corner" rules, which  is just a 4  x 7 character
poem.  Quite easy to learn.  Reasonably fast (not very fast due to the
high frequency of code collision).



-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     +Z05biGVm-                          ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee