This may be a stupid question, but I can't figure out how to type pinyin with the tones on my computer keyboard. Does anyone know how to do this? Typing in pinyin without the tones makes me slightly crazy. :P
I installed a Chinese keyboard on my computer through the keyboard settings, but I can't seem to make it work properly. I added the Microsoft Simplified Pinyin New Input Style but I frankly can't figure out how it works. It's not terribly intuitive and when I type it isn't giving me tone options. Maybe I've added the wrong one?
I can type pinyin with tones on my iphone (VERY slowly) but i would like to do this on my computer so that I can type faster. Any ideas would be appreciated! Thank you!
Since you are a beginner, most basic sentences might be understandable without tones: Wo xihuan xuexi zhongwen. Another method could be adding the according number of the tone: Wo3 xi3huan xue2xi2 zhong1wen2.
Maybe this program helps: http://www.pinyintones.com/ ? But I have no experience with it.
I think I got the point . There are two ideas I learned from your descriptions.
The first guess about your problem :Your meaning is that you couldn't recognize the Chinses charactors by their shape, you could only express them by Pinyin . So ,you need to add tones to the spelling for avoiding people be confused by your spelling.
If this is your problem , I d like to say that you don't need worry about that ,native speaker can infer your meaning by the context without tones because they are quite familiar with the spelling of words. Additionally, the situation that two homophones in the same sentence can be correct both logical and reasonable , is sedom seen.
The second guess of your problem:
I guess you mean you don't know how to use inpute software for typing Chinses charactor.
Actually , you don't need to choose tone when you are typing words because words with different tones can be the same in spelling of pinyin, right?
For exzample , '天' and '田' are both spelled in 'tian' with pinyin enven though they have different tones. What you shuold do is to type the right letter in pinyin ,and choose the right Chinese character in the candidate list which the input method software show you after your typing.
In addition , don't use Microsoft 's typing software because it's quite old-fashioned . Google Chinese input ,Sogo pinyin (搜狗拼音shu'r输入法) , baidu pinyin (百度拼音) , all the software above are 100 times efficient than microsoft's .They can forecast the words you need before you ending your typing , and supply a candidate list for you , even you can use abbreviation of the pinyin like 'wo d' to type the word '我的' or '我都' or '我打' ,etc.
At last , I am very glad to be a language partner , both in writing and speaking.
