五笔

五筆

wǔbǐ

noun

Meanings

1 Wubi, a shape-based input method for Chinese characters

Characters

Examples

HSK 5

我妈妈打字用五笔，不用拼音。

Wǒ māma dǎzì yòng wǔbǐ, bú yòng pīnyīn.

My mum types with Wubi, not pinyin.

HSK 7-9

五笔按字形输入汉字，熟练以后比拼音快，但要先记住字根。

Wǔbǐ àn zìxíng shūrù hànzì, shúliàn yǐhòu bǐ pīnyīn kuài, dàn yào xiān jìzhù zìgēn.

Wubi enters characters by their shape; once you are fluent it is faster than pinyin, but first you have to memorize the components.

Tips

history

五笔 is short for 五笔字型, invented by 王永民 in 1983. It types every character in at most four keys by its components, so it has far fewer 重码 (duplicate codes) than pinyin input. It was the standard for professional typists in the 1990s; today most people type in pinyin.

memory

The name refers to the five stroke types the keyboard is sorted by: 横, 竖, 撇, 捺 and 折.

Stroke Order

五 wǔ

笔 bǐ