Part 5. Remaining Secondary Shapes and Shortcuts

/ chinese wubi hanzi / 3 min read /

This is a part of the Introduction to Wubi Input Method series. Previous chapter was about secondary shapes.

First, let’s study the remaining secondary shapes.

纟X X

Secondary keys for this key include variations of the root shape, including its traditional variant as a radical, and in addition to those, three hardly related but frequently used shapes , , and the outside of , the code for which is xgu.

又C C

On this key there is a couple of secondary shapes that are somewhat similar to the root shape, the top part of 𢀖, the top part of , and the top part of . Besides here you can find horses and boas , making it one of the most animal-related keys.

女V V

This key is home to because it looks like much a lady, and by extension, which looks similar to . In addition you find two frequently used shapes, the radical that you find in fv and jv, and the top part of which as a radical has the code ve. Also, it’s the ‘triple’ shape key for the broken stroke, and three broken strokes make up the element that can be found in vp.

子B B </svg>

This key has two kinds of secondary shapes, the first being which is similar to the root shape, and somewhat similar bottom part of , making its code is cbt. Then we have and anything ear-like, including the ears radical (and its counterpart on the right), single ear radical and its variant , and even and . Also, this is the ‘double’ broken stroke key.

已N N

Finally, we have a shape key for the broken stroke. In addition to the root shape it has a couple of easily confused characters, , , and . As if this was not complicated enough already, the last too share the same code nngn. They are accompanied by visually similar and 𠃜. Besides, this key is also home to wings , hearts (both and ) and distantly heartlike 𠃊.

Shortcut keys

Now we are finally done with all secondary shapes, so it seems the right moment to tell you about shortcuts, if you have not figured that out already by yourself. The thing is, single-letter Wubi codes are difficult to assign meaningfully and unambiguously to either the root shapes, or the secondary shapes. Yet, they can provide a lot of convenience, as there are many frequently used characters that would require typing full Wubi codes over and over again. Therefore, each of the 25 keys has also been assigned a shortcut character. Sometimes it is the root shape, sometimes a secondary shape, and sometimes it’s completely unrelated. Notice though, that each of the shortcut characters still retains its full code, so for example can be input by both q and trnt or trn. Also remember that when a character in question functions as a radical, or when you input a character as part of word, you do not use the shortcut key.

Wubi Keyboard with Shortcut Keys Q W E R T Y U I O P A S D F G H J K L Z X C V B N M

This concludes everything about shapes. We have only a couple of topics left to learn before fully mastering Wubi, isolation and inputting words and expressions.

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