Learn How to Type Chinese Characters Using a Keyboard with Yoyo Chinese.

Hello, welcome back. Let me start this lesson by asking you a question. If there's no alphabet in Chinese, then how do Chinese people type? Have you ever thought about this question before? If you're a little unsure about it, then you're in good company. Is there a different key for each character? I think each key on the keyboard represents a different stroke. This is a very interesting question and I've never really thought of Alright, let me tell you how it works. This is what the Chinese keyboard looks like. Surprise! It's exactly the same as the English keyboard. It's the same because actually you type in Chinese in almost the same way that you type in English. When you type in English, you just hit the letters that you use to spell the word, right? So to type the word apple, you just hit the keys a-p-p-l-e, right? In Chinese, we do the same thing, using pinyin. So to type the word wo, you just need to touch the keys for w-o. You don't even have to worry about tones, you just input the letters. What happens next is truly awesome. The computer does the hard work for you. After you type in w-o, the computer pulls up a list of characters that it thinks you might have in mind. And the characters are always sorted by frequency, with the most commonly used characters at the top of the list. So when you type in Chinese, you first need to spell out the words in pinyin, and then look at a list of characters generated by the computer, and pick out the one that you want. So, can you see how the process of typing in Chinese is essentially just recognizing or reading? And recognizing is not a difficult task, really. Your brain is so good at identifying and distinguishing between images that look similar. You can probably identify several different breeds of dogs and several different cell phone models. And you'll be able to accurately pick out the friend's face every time, even if the people in the lineup beside him look very similar to him. You recognize a person's face by their various features like their eyes, nose, mouth, hair and skin, right? Well, I'm gonna teach you how to recognize characters in a similar way by paying attention to the differences in the various components of characters. And then, once you can recognize characters, you'll be able to both read and type Chinese. Now let's talk about writing Chinese by hand. Handwriting in Chinese is a totally different skill than typing. The difference between typing and writing by hand is like the difference between picking out your friend's face from a mugshot lineup and drawing a sketch of your friend's face from memory. It takes a lot more time and effort to master writing characters by hand from memory. It's a big challenge, but for some people, it's worth the extra effort. Maybe you're a visual or artistic person and will enjoy writing by hand. Or maybe you think that you'll remember characters better if you write them by hand. These are good reasons to take on the challenge and I definitely want to support you if you decide to go that route. We'll provide you some materials and resources to help you along the way. But for most people, learning how to read and type is all you need to know. Even Chinese people don't write characters by hand very often these days. Almost all writing is done on a computer or device, so Chinese people can often read and type really well, but they are losing their ability to write Chinese by hand. It's not uncommon for a Chinese person to completely forget how to write a character, but if they see it, they will recognize it immediately. Recognizing characters is the skill that you really need to be considered literate in Chinese these days. So that's why in this course, we're going to primarily focus on reading and typing. Your homework for this lesson is to download the reference sheet that shows you how to set up your computer or mobile device for inputting Chinese. If the thought of configuring a computer or device scares you, don't worry, it's a really simple process and we'll guide you through it. Once you've got that set up, you'll almost be ready to start reading and typing many of the things that you already know how to say in Chinese. But first, we've got just one more introductory lesson. I want to show you more about how our course is set up, so you know what to expect. Alright, see you next time. Zàijiàn. And click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you so much. Zàijiàn.