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Google Pinyin: Typing in Chinese has never been this much fun

0404goog.jpgNot that typing in Chinese has ever been much fun to begin with, but why let that get in the way of us telling you a great product, Google Pinyin (GP), freshly released from Google Labs just today. How’s that different from old school Windows pinyin you ask? Well, for starters, GP is hell of a lot smarter. Take this sentence for example, “上海到处都是盗版碟片.” Before GP came along, we would have had to break it down to several phrases and complete the line that way. Not with GP, we didn’t have to pause one bit. And the goodness doesn’t stop there. If an user simultaneously logs into his Google account while typing, GP will analyze and learn his word entry habit, and overtime optimize character output to save user time. How cool is that?

There are a ton of other features, and we have only been testing GP for a few minutes, so to learn more, look here. Just one catch, it’s all in Chinese, but if you’re looking into pinyin, chances are your Chinese is absolutely perfect. Besides, who doesn’t speak/read Chinese these days?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Jay Sheng in , on April 4, 2007 7:18 PM

Comments [rss]

  • grandchaseking

    i dont really understand how to use it

  • 小莎莎

    hello!　I just recently downloaded the google pinyin IME and I really like it. I can't read chinese as fluently as I speak it, so going through the options and everything is a little difficult...have to get my mom to help ^^; but I am wondering if you or anyone else knows what the sun/moon icon is for? when I click it, it changes my typing font to the ｓｐａｃｅｄ　ｏｕｔ　ｗｏｒｄｉｎｇ　ｌｉｋｅ　ｔｈｉｓ, but sometimes the spaced out wording is toggled automatically, and it doesn't seem to depend on whether it's the moon or the sun showing up...??

  • 军

    I did not have very pleasant experience with google pinyin because it poped up all the time even in the middle of a game when I used keyboard so that there is a piece of screen that I could not see. I had to removed it.

  • It does not only looks like the Sogu pinyin technlology, but it seems that Google China copied it !

    "Google Inc. apologized Monday following complaints the U.S. search company's new Internet tool for inputting Chinese characters incorporated data from a Chinese rival."

  • Ken

    Mac users should check out QIM, which is light years ahead of the input methods Apple has included.

    It's not free, but from now until April 15, it's on sale to celebrate the birth of the author's son. (Not affiliated with the author, just a fan of the software.)

  • Jeremy

    Well, it is working for me now. I'm sorry rence, I have no explanation other than Google magic....

  • rence

    i'm with you jeremy...the space bar is a must for me as it feels weird not hitting the space bar for every other character..i'm not a big fan yet, but if that can be fixed, I'm on board.

  • Jeremy

    When I use Microsoft Pinyin IME 3.0, I can just hit the space bar if it has come up with the correct entry (that is, option #1 is what I want to write), but that didn't work for google's. Is this an option? Suggestions?

  • Wonderful, a great find.

    Thanks for the info.

  • venture160

    this is wicked awesome!!! better than anything that is out right now for PC, I doubt there will be a mac version though.

  • prettygood

    Like you I only used google pinyin for a few minutes, but i like it already. However my chinese is in the early stages, so English help would save a lot of machine translating(through my firefox Hanzibar [realimaginary.com]) . It doesn't work in my skype chat, and that is sad. I will need two different pinyin editors going at the same time. No one said learning chinese would be easy.

  • no

    Yea, and I bet google has some secret treaty with the Chinese government...

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