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Google Handwriting Input

Google's had Chinese handwriting input for a long time now. Many people use that, and it's reliable.
I think I see the value there. it'd be kind of hard to fit all those Chinese characters (5000?) onto a soft keyboard. come to think of it, I don't know what they do in China for "old fashioned" computer keyboard either.
 
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I think I see the value there. it'd be kind of hard to fit all those Chinese characters (5000?) onto a soft keyboard. come to think of it, I don't know what they do in China for "old fashioned" computer keyboard either.

It's around 6,500 for simplified Chinese characters, which is mostly used in mainland China, and it's actually around 50,000 for traditional Chinese, although they would never actually use that many... LOL

A Chinese mechanical typewriter, really was a clumsy and slow piece of equipment. ... no keyboard!
Chinese_typewriter.jpg

It's more like a typesetting, where you pick and place the individual types.

It's much easier with recent technology, because of Hanyu Pinyin romanization, e.g. you type "beijing", and you get “北京”.

Handwriting recognition for Chinese (hanzi) should be fairly easy and error free, and many people do use it their phones, because the strokes have to be written in a certain order, direction and style, and everyone is taught that at school and college.
 
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About as long as I've been in China :) , 6 years, and there's still much to learn. Speaking and understanding it has been the most important. And much of it has just been from daily needs, like at restaurants or shopping. I've not even attempted to try and learn to properly handwrite it yet, been no need really,

BTW Funky I expect like me when you was at school you learned the capital of China was Peking, and not Beijing?
 
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Lol tbh I can't remember mate but I knew it was Beijing like recently :thumbsupdroid:
I found it sooo hard to attempt to learn French in school lol (mandatory) and failed the exam badly so can't even imagine trying to learn Chinese.
I'm actually surprised the schools here haven't made learning Chinese or Indian mandatory by now.
The only reason they made it French was for the opening of the channel tunnel and I don't know anyone who has made great use of that link to France lol
 
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I was exactly the same with French at school, was mandatory, and I detested it completely. I think a few UK schools these days do offer Chinese as an option, as well as things like Hindi, Korean, Japanese, etc. A few public schools learning Latin is mandatory, and what a useless language that is, unless you want a job with The Vatican/Holy See. :D

There's a whole difference in learning a language when forced to do it at school, or because want and love to do it, and are living in the country. :thumbsupdroid: learning English is compulsory in all Chinese schools, and many students do hate and detest that.
 
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I read that my old school was now teaching Cantonese. I thought that won't help you in Beijing or Shanghai, and most of mainland PRC, you need Mandarin. Cantonese is only really used mostly in Hong Kong and Guangdong province.

Even if never coming to China, knowing Chinese can be useful when dealing with cheapo Androids. :D
 
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Lol as demonstrated by you regularly
What are the immigration rules like in PRC mate, as strict as the US or Canada for example when it comes to having a criminal record?

Start here... http://visaforchina.org/ :thumbsupdroid: a four page form with a lot of questions on it. It only asks if have a criminal record, yes or no. Seem to be more interested if you have or had any horrible diseases or disorders.

You must have a visa, there's no waivers or exceptions, unlike the US or Canada.

Hong Kong as an EU citizen, you don't need a visa for tourism.
 
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I got into the US ok, but had a rather strange experience while I was there in 2008. Two credit cards declined when booking domestic flights, on-line and at the airline ticket desks, for Continental and Delta airlines. Nothing wrong with the credit cards, paid for hotels and car rental with them. Had to pay cash for the flights! :thinking:

Hmmm.... we seem to have drifted somewhat OT. :D
 
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