1. Start a fresh emacs by 'emacs -Q' in terminal 2. Enable chinese-py input method of quail by eval'ing below snippet: (setq default-input-method "chinese-py") (toggle-input-method) 3. Start defining keyboard macro by hitting 'F3' 4. Input Chinese '你好' by typing 'ni1hao1' in the '*scratch*' buffer, and end keyboard macro by 'F4' 5. Replay keyboard macro by 'F4', it will get '嗯你h好', which is *not* exactly the same. 6. 'M-x kmacro-edit-macro' shows that some characters('n' and 'h') are repeated: ;; Keyboard Macro Editor. Press C-c C-c to finish; press C-x k RET to cancel. ;; Original keys: nni1hhao1 Command: last-kbd-macro Key: none Macro: nni1hhao1 ;; self-insert-command * 9 7. My guess is that it's due to put back the key into 'unread-command-events' in the function 'quail-start-translation', i.e.: (if key (setq unread-command-events (cons key unread-command-events))) In GNU Emacs 26.1 (build 1, x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.30) of 2018-06-26 built on buildhw-10.phx2.fedoraproject.org Windowing system distributor 'Fedora Project', version 11.0.11906000 System Description: Fedora release 28 (Twenty Eight) Recent messages: For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. Loading quail/PY...done Configured using: 'configure --build=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --host=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --program-prefix= --disable-dependency-tracking --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin --sysconfdir=/etc --datadir=/usr/share --includedir=/usr/include --libdir=/usr/lib64 --libexecdir=/usr/libexec --localstatedir=/var --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --with-dbus --with-gif --with-jpeg --with-png --with-rsvg --with-tiff --with-xft --with-xpm --with-x-toolkit=gtk3 --with-gpm=no --with-xwidgets --with-modules build_alias=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu host_alias=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu 'CFLAGS=-DMAIL_USE_LOCKF -O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Werror=format-security -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Wp,-D_GLIBCXX_ASSERTIONS -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong -grecord-gcc-switches -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1 -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-annobin-cc1 -m64 -mtune=generic -fasynchronous-unwind-tables -fstack-clash-protection -fcf-protection' LDFLAGS=-Wl,-z,relro PKG_CONFIG_PATH=:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig' Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG IMAGEMAGICK SOUND DBUS GSETTINGS NOTIFY ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE M17N_FLT LIBOTF XFT ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 MODULES THREADS XWIDGETS LCMS2 Important settings: value of $LC_CTYPE: en_US.UTF-8 value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8 value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Lisp Interaction Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv dired dired-loaddefs format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils quail help-mode easymenu cl-loaddefs cl-lib elec-pair time-date mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting xwidget-internal move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 99183 11721) (symbols 48 20740 1) (miscs 40 58 129) (strings 32 36203 1462) (string-bytes 1 794714) (vectors 16 15442) (vector-slots 8 509842 12640) (floats 8 49 201) (intervals 56 296 7) (buffers 992 12))