Questions Regarding Pinyin Typing

psamet

January 18, 2015, 07:07 PM posted in General Discussion

Hi everyone,

I understand that Pinyin is used more for learning than written communication. But as someone who cannot read or write characters, Pinyin's all I got.

My questions are:

1) What's the best way to type Pinyin on a Mac?Unfortunately, the built in Chinese keyboards convert your typed Pinyin into characters instead of leaving them as is. Is there any way to type Pinyin (with tonal marks) without it converting to characters?

2) What's the best way to type Pinyin on iOS?

3) Is there any way to translate large chunks of Chinese characters into Pinyin?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

dave1973

January 18, 2015, 08:17 PM

1) I use the U.S. Extended keyboard which can be added from the Input Sources tab of the keyboard control panel. First tone is option-a. Second tone is option-e. Third tone is option-v. Fourth tone is option-` (back tick). ü is option-u.

2) iOS I use the app Pinyin Typist. It's not great but it works.

3) I use translate.google.com to turn large blocks of Simplified or Traditional characters into pinyin. The translation is useless but the pinyin is good.

psamet

Thanks! I just tried the google translate link and it worked great. Pinyin Typist is a great app, but it's annoying to copy and paste. Hopefully now that third-party keyboards are possible in iOS, they'll create a Pinyin Typist keyboard. One can hope.