Stroke count method

The Stroke Count Method (Chinese: 笔画; pinyin: bǐ huà), Wubihua method, Stroke input method or Bihua IME (Chinese: 五笔画输入法; pinyin: wǔ bǐhuà shūrù fǎ or Chinese: 筆劃輸入法; pinyin: Bǐhuà shūrù fǎ) (lit.

The list of suggestions to choose from becomes more and more specific as more digits of the code are entered.

[1] Some people find this method of entering characters into a mobile phone to be faster than pinyin.

In fact, as pinyin is based upon Mandarin Chinese, many Chinese people – particularly in the southern regions of China like Hong Kong and Macau – who speak other varieties of Chinese and never learned pinyin relied solely on this method of entering characters on their phones, until touchscreen-based smartphones allowed the possibility of handwriting recognition.

Wubihua is one of the easiest to learn methods because it is simple and does not require knowledge of pronunciation or pinyin.