Wubi, short for Wubizixing (五笔字型 pinyin wu3 bi3 zi4 xing2), is an input method for writing Simplified Chinese text on a computer.
The Wubi method is based on the structure of characters rather than their pronunciation, making it possible to input unfamiliar characters, as well as not being too closely linked to any particular Chinese dialect. It is also extremely efficient: every character that you would want to write can be written with at most 5 keystrokes. In practice, most characters can be written with less. There are reports of experienced typists hitting 160 wpm with Wubi. What this means in the context of Chinese is not entirely clear, as words are an ill-defined unit in such a largely isolating language, but it is true that wubi is extremely fast when used by an experienced typist. The main reason for this is that, unlike with traditional phonetic input methods, one does not have to spend time selecting the desired character from a list of homophonic possibilities: virtually all characters have a unique representation.
In this article, we will use the following convention: character will always mean Chinese character, whereas letter, key and keystroke will always refer to the keys on your keyboard.
How it works
Essentially, a character is broken down into components, which usually (but not always) are the same as radicals. These are typed in the order in which they would be written by hand. In order to ensure that extremely complex characters do not require an inordinate number of keystrokes, any character containing more than 4 components is entered by typing the first 3 components written, followed by the last. In this way, each character's data can be entered with only 4 keystrokes.
Wubi distributes its characters very evenly and as such the vast majority of characters are uniquely defined by the 4 keystrokes discussed above. One then types a space to move the character from the input buffer onto the screen. In the event that the 4 letter representation of the character is not unique, one would type a digit to select the relevant character (for example, if two characters have the same representation, typing 1 would select the first, and 2 the second). In most implementations, a space can always be typed and simply means 1 in an ambiguous setting. Intelligent software will try to make sure that the character in the default position is the one you want.
Many characters have more than one representation. This sometimes is for ease of use, in case there is more than one obvious way to break down a character. More often though, it's because certain characters have a short representation that is less than 4 letters, as well as a "full" representation.
For characters with less than 4 components that do not have a short form representation, one types each component and then "fills up" the representation (that is, types enough extra keystrokes to make the representation 4 keystrokes) by manually typing the strokes of the last component, in the order they would be written. If there are too many strokes, write as many as you can, but put the last stroke last (this mirrors the component rule for characters with more than 4 components outlined above).
This sounds very complex, but it actually is pretty easy to learn. If you don't understand any of these methods, the examples below might help. Essentially though, once you understand the algorithm, you can type any character you see (pretty much) with a little practice, even if you haven't typed it before. If you type often, muscular memory will make sure you don't have to think about how the characters are actually constructed, just as the vast majority of English typists don't actually think very much about the spelling of words when they write.
Implementation specific details
Many implementations employ further, multiple-word optimizations. Usually, a commonly used digraph (two character word) in which both characters have short form two-keystroke representations can be combined into a single, four keystroke representation which generates two characters rather than one. There are also a few 3-character shortcuts, and even one rather longer, politically motivated one. Some examples of these are provided in the examples section below.
Another common feature is the use of the 'z' key as a wildcard. The Wubi method was actually designed with this feature in mind; this is why no components are assigned to the z key. Basically, one can type a z when they aren't sure what the component should be, and the input method will help them complete it. If you knew, for example, that the character ought to start with "kt", but were at a loss what the next component should be, typing "ktz" would produce a list of all characters starting with "kt". In practice though, many input method engines use a tabular lookup method for all table based input systems, including for Wubi. This means that they simply have a large table in memory, associating different characters to their respective representations. The input method then simply becomes a table lookup. In such an implementation, the z key breaks the paradigm and as such is not found in a lot of generalized software (although the Wubi input method commonly found in Chinese Windows implements the feature). For this same reason, the multiple character optimization described in the previous paragraph is also relatively rare.
Some input methods, such as xcin (found on many UNIX-like systems), provide a generic wildcard functionality which can be used in all the table based input systems, including pinyin and virtually anything else. Xcin uses '*' for auto-complete and '?' for just one letter, following the conventions pioneered in UNIX file globbing. Other implementations probably have their own conventions.
The Wubi keyboard
The Wubi keyboard assumes a QWERTY-like layout, so users of keyboards implementing a nationalized or non-standard layout (such as Dvorak or the French AZERTY) will probably have to do some remapping to make the system sane. Wubi does not position its components arbitrarily: there are far too many of them, and it is only with the introduction of a logical methodology that the system becomes easy to learn.
An Overall Description of the Keyboard's Structure
Basically, the keyboard is divided into 5 zones, each representing a stroke. Those five strokes are falling left, falling right, horizontal, vertical, and hook, and the zones that represent them are QWERT, YUIOP, ASDFG, HJKLM, and XCVBN, respectively. Notice that these zones are all laid out horizontally, with the exception of M, which is not in line with the rest of the letters in its zone.
In a general way, the keyboard can be thought of as divided down the center, between T and Y, G and H, and N and M. The keys in each zone are numbered moving away from this dividing line: so we should actually say that in zone QWERT, T is the first letter, R is the second, and E the third; in zone YUIOP, Y is the first, U is the second, I the third, etc. For XCVBN, N is the first, and so on. In HJKLM, consider M to be the last in the series, even though it does not lie on the line.
This is important because components in the first position will have one repetition of the stroke in question (the stroke assigned to the zone in which they belong), those in the second, two, those in the third, three. Those components which are not easily classifiable using this paradigm will be placed on the last letter.
Therefore you would expect 一 to be located on G, and 二 on F, and 三 on D, and indeed, this is the case. Similarly, you would expect 丨 to be located on H, 刂 to be on J, and 川 to be on K. This pattern holds for all the zones. Furthermore, it extends to most radicals that look as though they are made up of three such strokes, even if in fact they might not be at all. An example of this is 中 on K: while it does not have three downward strokes (two only), it appears to have three. Furthermore, it is written by hand by first writing a mouth radical, 口, and then bisecting it with a vertical downward stroke. The mouth radical lies on 'K', so this makes the assignment doubly logical. And the pinyin romanization of 口, kou3, begins with k, too! There are many such memory aids encoded into the Wubi keyboard.
Furthermore, each letter of each zone has one component associated with it, its "main component", if you will. These are usually a complete character (with the exception of X) in their own right. One can always type this main component by typing the letter it is situated on four times. So, for example, the main component of H is 目, and so one would type it by typing "hhhh".
Each letter also has a shortcut character associated with it. In some cases, this character is the same as the component associated with the key in question, and sometimes not. This shortcut character is the character produced when you type just the letter and nothing else; these are all extremely common characters used when typing Chinese.
Please note: It is entirely possible that there are a number of components not listed below, either because of oversight, because they are rarely used and so I actually do not know them, or because there is no unicode representation for anything that isn't hopelessly complex.
The QWERT zone (falling left)
The Q key's main component is 金 and its shortcut character is 我. It is associated with the following components: 金, 钅, 勹, 儿, 夕, as well as the hook at the top of 饣 and 角, the radical 犭 without the lower left-falling stroke (so characters with that radical start with "qt", not just "q"), the criss-cross (such as in the center of 区), the top of 鱼 (ie, without the horizontal stroke at the bottom), and the three (nearly vertical) "feet" in the bottom right corner of 流.
The W key's main component and shortcut character are both 人. It is associated with the following components: 人, 亻, 八, and the top of 癸. Note that while 人 means man, it is often used by Wubi to construct a roof radical, such as in 会, "wfc". Also note that 入 is not governed by W, despite looking similar. Also note that while 餐 has a top that looks vaguely like the top of 癸, the two are not the same (indeed, to type 餐, you must physically type out each component on the top).
The E key's main component is 月, and its shortcut character is 有. It is associated with the following components: 月, 用, 彡, 乃, the bottom of 衣 (ie, without 亠), the top of 孚 (ie, without 子), the bottom part of 家 (ie, without the roof radical), the bottom of 良 (ie, without the 白), and the bottom of 舟 (ie, without the little dot on the top). Notice that in this case, E's shortcut character does not even begin with a left-falling stroke, but merely prominently figures a component belonging to E. Also notice that 彡 is featured on this character, as it is the third character in the zone (counting from Q, see above). A particular distortion that comes up often is the use of E in 且 and in characters containing it: Wubi thinks of this component as 月 + 一.
The R key's main component is 白, and its shortcut character is 的. It is associated with the following components: 白, 手, 扌, 斤 (both with and without the T), 牛 (without the vertical downward stroke), and of course the two left-falling strokes (I cannot find the unicode glyph that represents them) that one would expect from the second key in the zone (see above for an explanation). Watch out for varieties of 手 where the central downward hook is replaced by a left-falling stroke, such as in 看.
The T key's main component is 禾, and its shortcut character is 和. It is associated with the following components: 禾, 竹, 夂, 攵, 彳, and the top of 乞 (ie, without the 乙). Note that 竹 may also be found in its smaller form, as seen on the top of 筇. Note that 丿 is also found on this key, because T is the first key in the zone (see above). This means that if you are typing a component or character stroke by stroke, you would (generally) use T to represent a left-falling stroke. See the section on disambiguation strokes for more information on exceptions to this rule.
The YUIOP zone (falling right)
This zone might also be called the dot zone, because its pattern of Y: 讠 U: 冫 I: 氵 and O: 灬 is not actually necessarily built up of right falling strokes. In fact, one could argue that the first stroke in 灬 actually falls left. It is called the falling right zone because the keys in this zone, when used to construct a character by stroke (rather than component), all represent right falling strokes for some character configuration (see the section on disambiguation strokes for more information).
The Y key's main component is 言, and its shortcut character is 主. It is associated with the following components: 言, 讠, 亠, 亠 with a 口 beneath it, 广, 文, 方, and 丶. Note that these components all start with a right-falling stroke. It is worth noting that generally, dots in Chinese characters are actually left falling strokes, and so most of the time, the use of T is more appropriate than Y. Of course, if you can write Chinese characters by hand, you should be able to tell which to choose by recalling how you write.
The U key's main component is 立, and its shortcut character is 产. It is associated with the following components: 立, 六, 辛, 门, 疒, 丬, 冫, the "antennae" on the top of 单 (just two strokes), and the antennae plus a horizontal stroke, as found on the top of 兹. Notice that most of these all feature two short diagonal strokes (门 being the obvious exception). This is consistent with R's place as the second letter in the zone (see above for an explanation).
The I key's main component is 水, and its shortcut character is 不. It is associated with the following components: 水, 氵, 小, the three strokes on the top of 学, and the three strokes on the top of 当. Additionally, a component which might be described as two 冫, back to back, is associated with this character.
The O key's main component is 火, and its shortcut character is 为. It is associated with the following components: 火, 米, 灬, and 业 without the bottom horizontal stroke -- this allows construction of characters such as 严. Notice that this is the 4th key in the falling right zone: hence the inclusion of 灬.
The P key's main component is 之, and its shortcut character is 这. It is associated with the following components: 之, 辶, 廴, 冖, 宀, and 礻. Note that, as Wubi components are typed in the order that they would need to be written were one writing by hand, the 辶 and 廴 components are typically typed last.
The ASDFG zone (horizontal)
The A key's shortcut character is 工.
The S key's main component is 木, and its shortcut character is 要.
The D key's main component is 大, and its shortcut character is 在.
The F key's main component is 土, and its shortcut character is 地. Note the logic between the main component's name (earth), and the shortcut character which means earth.
The G key's main component is 王, and its shortcut character is 一.
The HJKLM zone (vertical)
The H key's main component is 目, and its shortcut character is 上.
The J key's main component is 日, and its shortcut character is 是.
The K key's main component is 口, and its shortcut character is 中.
The L key's main component is 田, and its shortcut character is 国.
The M key's main component is 山, and its shortcut character is 同.
The XCVBN zone (hook)
The C key's main component is 又, and its shortcut character is 以.
The V key's main component is 女, and its shortcut character is 发.
The B key's main component is 子, and its shortcut character is 了.
The N key's main component is 已, and its shortcut character is 民.
Disambiguation strokes
Examples
Characters with 4 components or fewer (but no need for strokes)
Characters with more than 4 components
Characters with fewer than 4 components (needing strokes)
Characters requiring disambiguation strokes
External links
Last updated: 05-21-2005 05:00:51
