Computer Typing Question, Non-Pinyin?

[FederalFrenchie]

Hello!

I am VERY new to Chinese - I've only been studying for about a week now! Anyway, living in the United States, I thought that my biggest problem in learning Simplified Chinese would be to retain what I learn, not using on a day to day basis. So I said to myself "I spend to much time on the computer anyway, why not just create a user in windows set to Chinese, so that way I can keep in practice." Well, thats what I did, but I digress, the whole point of this post is to ask how to input Chinese characters in a non-pinyin fashion. The reason I don't want to use pinyin is because I really want to try and learn the characters as best as possible...

I have the stickers for the keyboard now, but all I can figure out how to set up is the pinyin input method. Is there another, more direct input method?

Thanks!

FF

[jbradfor]

If you want to retain what you learned, a SRS-based flashcard program is likely your best bet.

But back to your original question, yes, there are many other IME. Among the non-phonetic based, wubi and cangjie are common. wikipedia has a list of over a dozen.

BTW, what stickers do you mean?

[pancake]

You can buy a graphics tablet (Wacom is a good brand) and use it to write Chinese like you would use a pen.

[creamyhorror]

Probably the vast majority of users of simplified Chinese use pinyin to type characters, so you're really not setting yourself back by using it. Pinyin's not a crutch like romaji is in Japanese, it's an everyday tool of the language - as direct as you get on the computer.

If you want to practice writing characters, do calligraphy or copying. That's a different skill from learning to read characters and produce them via pinyin.