The Stroke Count Method (), ''Wubihua method'', ''Stroke input method'' or ''Bihua IME'' ( or ) (lit. ''5-stroke input method'') is a relatively simple

Chinese input method Several input methods allow the use of Chinese characters with computers. Most allow selection of characters based either on their pronunciation or their graphical shape. Phonetic input methods are easier to learn but are less efficient, while ...

for writing text on a computer or a mobile phone. It is based on the

stroke order Stroke order is the order in which the strokes of a Chinese character are written. A stroke is a movement of a writing instrument on a writing surface. Basic principles Chinese characters are logograms constructed with strokes. Over the ...

of a word, not pronunciation. It uses five or six buttons, and is often placed on a numerical keypad. Although it is possible to input

Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are a standard set of Chinese character forms used to written Chinese, write Chinese languages. In Taiwan, the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education (Taiwan), Ministry of Educat ...

with this method, this method is often associated with

Simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized Chinese characters, character sets widely used to write the Chinese language, with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of ...

. The Wubihua method should not be confused with the Wubi method. Each of the five keys from 1 to 5 are assigned a certain type of stroke (resembling the

Eight Principles of Yong The Eight Principles of ''Yong'' are used by calligraphers to practice how to write the eight most common strokes in regular script, using the fact that they are all present in the character . It was believed that the frequent practice of these ...

; these five are sometimes called with each character of this phrase being a one-syllable description of the respective five strokes: # A horizontal stroke from left to right () # A vertical stroke from top to bottom () # A long diagonal stroke downward from right to left () # A very short dash stroke downward from left to right () # A horizontal stroke from left to right, ending with a downwards hook to the left () To input any character, the user simply presses the keys corresponding to the strokes of a character then select from a list of matching characters. The list of suggestions to choose from becomes more and more specific as more digits of the code are entered. The system will not recognize a character input with an incorrect stroke order. Some people find this method of entering characters into a mobile phone to be faster than

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

. In fact, as pinyin is based upon

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

, many Chinese people – particularly in the southern regions of China like Hong Kong and

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

– who speak other varieties of Chinese and never learned pinyin relied solely on this method of entering characters on their phones, until touchscreen-based

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

s allowed the possibility of

handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwriting, handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens ...

. Wubihua is one of the easiest to learn methods because it is simple and does not require knowledge of pronunciation or pinyin. However, it tends to be vague, as a Wubihua code will normally match ten characters, and each character has one correct code, which confuses users whose stroke orders are wrong. Strokes map to Wubihua input generally according to the following table:

Notes

References

External links

Wubihua For Speakers of English

Thesis on chinese language processing and computing – Wubihua
CJK input methods {{writingsystem-stub

See also

Notes

References

External links