Boshiamy

I don't know how to type in Chinese. Normally it's not a problem - I don't write to anyone in Chinese anyway. But every once in a while Chinese input comes in handy, like when people want to know Mark's Chinese name, or if I want to refer to my third-granduncle-twice-removed or whatever who doesn't have an English name.

So when I was having lunch with some engineers from Taiwan today, I asked them what Chinese input method they use. One person said he uses Boshiamy, and almost everyone concurred it's the fastest Chinese input method. As we talked more about it, it became clear to me this input method is totally designed for me! Chinese radicals are mapped into the 26 English letters, so the keyboard stays exactly the same as an English keyboard. The input method is based on the shape or the sound of the word. My favorite is the (very common) radical "車." It means "car" in Chinese, and therefore the letter "C" is assigned to it. The same goes for "木", which means "tree" - the letter "T" is assigned to it.

I looked up Boshiamy on wikipedia. It tickles me that the word 哈 is mapped to "O A O". Get it? It's an O on the left, an "A" on the top right, then an "O" on the bottom right. That's hilarious.

Someone at lunch also said that because the inventor of the system leveraged mnemonic so much, you'll be able to type 70% of the words in common usage once you finish reading the manual. Too bad it's proprietary. I'll have to get my hands on that software sometime.