简体中文 · Beginner 1(a)
Learn to type in Mandarin Chinese
Home row anchors
Settle both hands on the home row: A S D F for the left, J K L ; for the right.
These are the keys you press: Pinyin is typed on the Latin letters shown, and the input method turns them into 简体中文.
Learning to type in Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin Chinese is not typed one key per character: you compose the sound of a word using Pinyin IME and choose the written form you meant.
Speed in Mandarin Chinese is two skills wearing one coat. The first is keystrokes — Pinyin IME is typed on the Latin keys you already have. The second is selection: reading a candidate list and committing the right entry without breaking rhythm. The second is where the time actually goes, and it is the one that keeps improving long after the first has plateaued.
Do not judge your Mandarin Chinese by WPM alone for the first few weeks. The number is held down by candidate selection, which is a reading skill, and reading speed improves on its own schedule. The keystrokes are already yours.
Not all keys are worth the same. Ten characters carry around 20% of everything you will type in these Mandarin Chinese drills, and the remaining 67 share what is left. That is why the course introduces its material a little at a time rather than all at once: the early characters do a disproportionate amount of the work.
Nine stages take you from the home row outwards, adding a few keys at a time and drilling them as sequences rather than as words — the point at this stage is the position, not the vocabulary. Each stage holds several drills, and each drill wants three clean passes before it counts — by default, and Settings will change it: not three attempts, three clean ones. Slower at the start, considerably faster by the middle.
- Writing system
- Han
- Keyboard layout
- Pinyin IME
- Direction
- left to right
- Practice words
- 43
- Distinct characters
- 77
- Average word
- 2 units
- Input method
- Candidate selection
Characters that come up most in these Mandarin Chinese words
- 天4
- 习2
- 字2
- 学2
- 间2
- 上1
- 下1
- 中1
- 今1
- 以1
- 们1
- 作1
Counted across the 43 practice words — the ones worth recognising first.
双手放在主键位上保持放松Pinyin is one of several ways in
There is no keyboard with a key per Chinese character, and there could not be — the question is which intermediate system you type instead. Several answers are in daily use and they are genuinely different skills.
Pinyin, which these lessons use, is phonetic: you type the romanised sound of a word and choose from the characters that share it. It is overwhelmingly dominant on the mainland, it requires no new keyboard, and its weakness is homophones — a common syllable can offer dozens of candidates, so speed depends on how well the software predicts you and how quickly you read a list.
Zhuyin, also called Bopomofo, is the standard in Taiwan. It is also phonetic but uses its own set of 37 symbols rather than Latin letters, arranged across the keyboard, so it needs a layout you do not already have.
Shape-based methods such as Wubi and Cangjie work differently again: you decompose a character into its strokes or components and type those. They are much harder to learn and have no homophone problem at all, which is why professional typists and transcriptionists still use them.
Questions about typing in Mandarin Chinese
Do I need a Mandarin Chinese keyboard?
No, and nothing needs buying. Pinyin IME is a setting in your operating system's language preferences. Once it is on, the keys you already have produce Mandarin Chinese through the candidate list; without it, they produce Latin letters.
How long does learning to touch type in Mandarin Chinese take?
Longer than a week and shorter than you fear — and it depends far more on how often you practise than on how long each session runs. Short daily sessions beat long weekly ones by a wide margin, because what you are building is recall and recall decays between sessions. The streak counter exists for that reason.
Can I skip ahead to a later stage?
Yes, nothing is locked. It is usually a mistake, though, because each stage assumes the keys before it have stopped needing thought — and a stage practised on top of a shaky one tends to embed the shakiness rather than fix it.
Why does a drill need three clean passes?
Because one correct attempt proves you can do it and three prove you can repeat it, which is the thing that eventually becomes automatic. Attempts with mistakes in them do not count towards the three — not as a punishment, but because practising an error is how an error becomes a habit. Three is the default rather than a rule: Settings will take it down to one or up to ten.
Which Mandarin Chinese keyboard layout do these lessons use?
Pinyin IME. The 43 practice words between them use 77 distinct characters. The keyboard guide below the typing area shows the keys you actually press, which for an input method are the Latin ones already printed on them.
What will I actually be typing in Mandarin Chinese?
Sequences of the keys each stage has introduced — single letters first, then pairs, then short chunks — in Han as the Pinyin layout produces it, rather than transliterated into Latin letters. The point of the course is the position of a key rather than the vocabulary. The 43 common Mandarin Chinese words in the practice bank are what the speed test samples and what the games pull from, once the positions stop needing thought.
Is Mandarin Chinese hard to type?
Not in the way you are probably expecting. The keystrokes are Latin and already familiar; what is hard is the selection step, and that is a reading skill rather than a typing one. Expect your Mandarin Chinese speed to be governed by how well you read Mandarin Chinese, with a wide character inventory — 77 distinct characters appear in the practice bank alone.
Do I need an account, and is it free?
Neither. There is no paid tier and no required sign-in — the 43 Mandarin Chinese practice words, the speed test and all three games are the whole product, available immediately. Signing in is worth it only if you practise on more than one device.
Also in Mandarin Chinese: the speed test and typing games.
Other languages written in Han: Japanese.
More languages on Typelesson: Māori, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Typing Chinese: Pinyin, Zhuyin and the shape-based methodsNo keyboard has a key per character, so the question is what you type instead. Four answers are in daily use, and they are genuinely different skills.
- Adding a keyboard layoutThe step before any of this works: turning on the layout in your operating system, switching to it, and what to do about the wrong letters on your keycaps.
- What touch typing isTouch typing means typing without looking, using all ten fingers from a fixed home position. What it is, why it works, and what it is not.