Cangjie and Yahoo! Taiwan

Here is something uber-interesting and I'm tres-excited! We all (at least those who have used 百度 and know a little Chinese) know Baidu is smart enough to understand your pinyin input and then convert that into Chinese characters before searching through its huge database of webpages. What at least I didn't know was, a similar functionality exists in Yahoo! Taiwan. You can input Cangjie codes of characters, and the search engine is so smart that it will present you with search options in Chinese characters. Here is a proof: 

Isn't this exciting? This is super exciting! I want to dance. I wish it rained now! 

By the way, in Cangjie niy ahqm o = 外星人, which literally translates into "foreign star person", or more colloquially into "alien or extraterrestrial." 

Canjie + Mozc = a new Japanese input system

I finally figured out how to use Cangjie to type Japanese! No, it's not the best way to input Japanese. It's slow and I won't recommend it to you unless you have plenty of time in your hands and little typing to do.

NOTE: It's not as slow as it looks in the video. My screen recorder consumes so much memory that it makes every other process crawl. 

Cangjie and MOZC for Japanese

NOTE: The video quality is shabby. Blame Blogger for that! (~_^)

What I have done is no brainer. I have used two input systems - MOZC and Cangjie - simultaneously and I constantly toggle between them. A downside of this arrangement is that you are stuck if you have to type Roman characters.

I didn't do it out of laziness. I was trying to create my own ibus-table in the morning. After a couple of hours I had accomplished nothing. But, I had completely messed up my iBus so that all the input methods using tables just vanished. I had to reinstall.

A shape based input method for Japanese

After learning Cangjie, I asked several people if they were aware of any shape based input method for Japanese. Always they replied it didn't exist. I asked a couple of Japanese too; same response. Then to my great surprise, I was trying Boshiamy a couple of days ago and accidentally discovered it could type Japanese! 

I haven't been able to locate any Boshiamy tutorials in English so far. So I don't really know how efficient a method it is. Nonetheless, I could type both the Kana and Kanji! What a pity that Cangjie doesn't offer a version for Japanese. 

Is Cangjie (or Wubi) worth learning?

YES, it is! And that's been my experience so far.

Why?

1. I have been learning Chinese for the past few months, and Cangjie for a little more than six weeks. I don't know many characters, my grammar is poor but when I see an unknown character online, I can look it up in a dictionary without having to copy it which is anyways impossible when the unfamiliar character is part of an image or shows up in video. So that's an advantage of learning Cangjie (or Wubi): you can type unknown characters.

2. You can't use Cangjie (or Wubi) if you don't know what 漢語 looks like. So the system compels you to remember the shapes of characters. This gives you extra practice when you are learning Chinese. With Pinyin-IME (or Bopomofo), you tend to forget the details and after some time only a vague form remains in your mind. At least that was happening to me.

3. They say Cangjie (or Wubi) is faster. I confess I still type faster in Pinyin. But then I have been used to Qwerty layout for the past so many years. I believe after a few months, I will be able to type faster using Cangjie.

But they say...

They say it takes a long time to learn Cangjie (or Wubi). 

Switch to Dvorak and I bet you can't match your current typing speed on the new layout for at least a month. And that's normal. It takes time to learn anything new. Cangjie is no exception. You will have to spend a month, or in a few cases two, before you can grasp its principles and feel comfortable with the new layout.

They say you have to memorise a lot of codes.

This shows ignorance on part of those who makes such ludicrous claims. It's just not true. Do you think I learnt to type 漢語 by learning this code etli yrmmr? Of course, not! That's impossible! ? You only have to learn 24 + 1 letters and their auxiliary shapes. Together they don't amount to more than 100. This may sound a lot, but at the rate of ten-a-day you can have them all under your belt in less than ten days.

There doesn't exist a tutorial in English.

That's partly true. If you are ready to spend a few rupees, there does exit a book in English to teach Cangjie. I am not sure about Wubi. If for any reason you don't want the book, these links may be helpful: 

1. Introduction to Cangjie

2. How to learn Cangjie

3. Chinese-English Dictionary with Cangjie Codes

4. A pictorial dictionary that demonstrates how radicals and sub-radicals come together to form a character

In case you are learning Chinese through simplified characters, these links may prove useful:

1. Introduction to Wubixing

2. Chinese-Chinese Dictionary with Wubi Codes

3. A pictorial dictionary that helps you understand how the method works

Are there any downsides? 

One of the downsides that I have noticed so far is that I sometimes forget how to pronounce characters, even though I remember how to write them and what they mean. Today I learnt the word for bicycle. It's 自行車. I have forgotten how to pronounce the first character but I remember the remaining two are 行 (xing) and 車 (che).

Do people use them?

Cangjie and Wubi are not as popular as Pinyin-IMEs. Perhaps there are ten (or more) Pinyin-IME users for each Cangjie or Wubi user. But then Macs aren't as popular as PCs, and there aren't as many Ferraris sold here as Maruti Suzuki Altos.

How to install Cangjie or Wubi?

Linux (Fedora)

Go to Add/Remove Software, type Cangjie (or Wubi). There will be several options. I use Smart Cangjie. For Wubi, you can choose Wubi-Jidian86. After that click on Apply. The system will ask for Root password, type in that and you are done.

Windows and Mac

I don't know. It's been quite long since I last used Windows and I have never used a Mac.