"Shuangpin" is a pinyin-based input method that has the characteristics of fewer keystrokes, strong typing rhythm, simplicity, and ease of learning compared to quanpin. Based on personal experience, proficiency can generally be achieved within one month of practice, surpassing quanpin's input speed by 20% within three months (calculated at 60 characters/minute for quanpin).
Similar to quanpin and the legendary Wubi, Shuangpin is also an input method and not a specific input software. Like quanpin, Shuangpin is supported by the input methods that come with mainstream operating systems.
Let's review pinyin first. Most pinyin consists of an initial consonant followed by a final vowel (a few have no initial consonant and are composed only of a final vowel).
Initial consonants:
b p m f d t n l
g k h j q x
zh ch sh r z c s
w y
Final vowels:
a o e ai ei ao ou an en ang eng ong
i ia ie iao iou(iu) ian in iang ing iong
u ua uo uai uei(ui) uan uen(un) uang ueng(eng)
ü üe(ue) üan(uan) ün(un)
Shuangpin maps both the initial consonants and final vowels to specific keys on the keyboard, requiring only two keystrokes for each character, one for the initial consonant and one for the final vowel. For example, for the character "双" (shuāng), you only need to press the key corresponding to "sh" once and the key corresponding to "uang" once.
To conform to convention, single-letter initial consonants and final vowels in Shuangpin are directly mapped to the keys corresponding to the letters. For example, "哈" (hā) is input the same way as in quanpin. For initial consonants composed of multiple letters, such as zh, ch, and sh, they are mapped to non-initial consonant keys such as v, i, and u.
Someone has conducted a test which shows that with quanpin, an average character requires 2.9 keystrokes. In Shuangpin, each character requires a fixed 2 keystrokes, reducing keystrokes by 31% compared to quanpin ((2.9-2)/2.9=0.31), and improving input efficiency by 45% ((2.9/2-1)/1=0.45). It can be said that this is a significant improvement.
Using Shuangpin not only reduces keystrokes and improves input efficiency, but also better aligns with the design of pinyin's combination of initial consonants and final vowels.
Compared to the widely used quanpin input method, the advantage of the Shuangpin input method lies in the number of keystrokes.
As an improved pinyin input method or group, Shuangpin essentially inputs by transcribing phonetics. Compared to quanpin, it arranges initial consonants and final vowels longer than one letter on specific keys, achieving the effect of spelling all characters with only two letters. Compared to the process of quanpin input method "recognize - input pinyin - flip page - select characters", it only fixes the process of "input pinyin" to 2 keystrokes instead of 1-6 keystrokes, making the keystroke rhythm more regular. When typing, a proper rhythm can make the output more fluent. And thanks to the fact that the number of characters that can be completed with one keystroke in pinyin is still relatively small, in most cases, Shuangpin can reduce the number of keystrokes.
Selection of Schemes#
Shuangpin has a long history and can be directly used in input methods on major platforms, and there are many syntax schemes.
Among all the mainstream schemes, the ones I personally recommend the most are Xiaohe Shuangpin and Natural Code Shuangpin. If you are an iOS/macOS user, this recommendation is narrowed down to Xiaohe Shuangpin. Apart from the native support of the system input method, there are mainly two reasons.
First, these two schemes avoid using the ";" key for final vowels (such as Microsoft/Sogou Pinyin and Ziguang Pinyin, ; - ing), so they do not change the keyboard layout on mobile platforms. Because when some Android input methods encounter Shuangpin schemes that use the semicolon key, they will not change the keyboard layout to add an additional button, but will move the final vowel to another existing button, such as the lower left corner to avoid ambiguity. Although the semicolon is not so important in Shuangpin schemes, such changes would disrupt muscle memory.
Second, these two schemes do not use a fixed zero initial consonant scheme. The so-called "zero initial consonant" refers to designating a specific key on the keyboard as the zero initial consonant, which, when combined with a final vowel key, is used to input characters composed solely of final vowels. For example, in Microsoft Shuangpin, "按" (àn) is input as "oj". Xiaohe and Natural Code set the zero initial consonant as the first letter of the final vowel. As a result, two-letter characters composed of pure final vowels can be exactly the same as in quanpin, and single-letter characters of pure final vowels can be input by double-clicking the key, reducing the difficulty of adaptation.
Practice of Shuangpin Schemes#
The author of the article "Making Shuangpin No Longer a Input Method for a Few" has developed a very suitable practice website, Shuangpin Practice @ BlueSky. The website provides both a web version and a WeChat mini program, supporting 17 Shuangpin schemes, and the website is also perfectly compatible with mobile viewing.
