Cantonese Text Input Methods (Updated)
- SZK
- 11 févr. 2023
- 3 min de lecture
I've mentioned the many frustrations that one experiences when trying to learn Cantonese - unreliable textbooks, the many different romanisation systems, written Cantonese vocabulary lists vs spoken Cantonese vocabulary lists, few detailed dictionaries, and so on and so forth.
Well, another aspect that I had found incredibly frustrating was that there was no effective way of typing Cantonese on the computer. Even in 2019 when I first wrote about this, there was nothing except for a very sketchy plugin download for Mac and Cantolounge's method of personalising your Google keyboard preferences to enable Cantonese input.
Finally (for Mac users) it is here! If you go to your System Preferences > Keyboards > Text Input, you can find "Cantonese Traditional" in the list of keyboards, and from that, you can select how you'd like to enter the Cantonese - including PHONETIC INPUT! Not only is it available on Mac computers, but you can do the same with your iPhone!
Anyhow, I have left the old methods in the rest of the post in case you prefer the Google input method:
About 5 years ago, there was indeed a plugin that I was able to download which allowed me to type in Cantonese on my Mac computer. Unfortunately, with the update from the PowerPC to the Intel Mac operating system, the Cantonese IME plugin stopped working, and I have not found any method of typing Cantonese into the computer that was as easy as the old Cantonese IME plugin ever since! Well, until now...
The video below, published by Cantolounge, worked perfectly for me. It involves personalising your Google keyboard layout preferences to enable Cantonese input, which, when activated, can be used to type Cantonese into Google Docs, Sheets etc. (There may even be an extension which allows you to type Cantonese in Google Chrome if you are logged in to the browser.)
To be honest, I do not often use Google Docs, but for the few occasions when I will be typing Cantonese into the computer, it is no hassle whatsoever. Here is the link to the video:
It worked pretty well compared to other input methods that I have tried over the last year or so. It doesn't seem to use any one particular romanization system. As mentioned in the video, 'y' is used instead of the jyutping 'jy' characters. Tones are not required and the rest is a matter of finding the right option and selecting it. It seems to have some predictive text abilities as it suggests the most common words and phrases that one is likely to use in relation to the other words surrounding it. There was only one glitch where the input paused or stalled and went back to English text input, but perhaps with a little more practice, I will know how to use it properly so this doesn't happen.
Anyhow, the reason why I am so excited about this Cantonese IME is because it will allow me to practise writing in Cantonese much more freely than how I do now. Usually I write a few small sentences down on a piece of paper, and as much as I love writing Chinese characters, it slows my learning down, frustrates me when I make a mistake with one of the strokes, and exhausts me, making me less willing to write another sentence.
Even though Cantonese is mostly a spoken language, writing is a wonderful tool that any learner can and should use to speed up the vocabulary recall process, which, in turn, will mean vocabulary recall during spoken communication will speed up.
So, let's use this tool and practise writing in Cantonese! (Thank you, Cantolounge!)
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