Type Toned Pinyin on a Mac

Pinyin is a romanization of East Asian languages, like Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and others. In other words, it phonetically spells out these languages in the Roman alphabet to aid in pronunciation for students of the language. Pinyin is often used to teach basic Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, write important names or places in publications, or to simplify typing on a keyboard. What makes Pinyin difficult to type with is the extensive use of accents that are less common in Western languages. Luckily, accessing the Pinyin keyboard is quick and easy to do.

Steps

Setting Up Pinyin on Your Mac

  1. Go to "Language & Text." You can do this by going to "System Preferences" under the apple icon. "Language & Text" with vase a flag icon. In later versions of the Mac operating system, go to "Keyboard" instead.
  2. Click on the "Input Sources" tab.
  3. Check "ABC Extended." In earlier versions of the Mac operating system, this may be called "U.S. Extended." In the bottom left-hand corner select the "+" button and then from the dropdown menu select "U.S. Extended," which can be found near the bottom. Once you have selected it, press "OK".[1]
  4. Activate "ABC Extended." When you find that you want to type in Pinyin, you can activate the keyboard controls by going to the flag icon in the menu bar next to the clock. In later versions, it is the keyboard icon rather than a flag icon and looks like a small window with the "Command" sign in it. Select "ABC Extended."

Using Pinyin on Your Mac

  1. Open your text editor. Once you setup Pinyin and are prepared to start writing, activate the "U.S. Extended" or "ABC Extended" keyboard from the menu bar.
  2. Type a first, or flat, tone mark. You can do this with the following keypress: ⌥ Option + a, which will create the accent, and then a, e, i, o, u, or v to create ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, or ǖ, respectively.[2]
  3. Type the second, or rising, tone mark. You can do this with the following keypress: ⌥ Option + e, which will create the accent, and then a, e, i, o, u, or v to create á, é, í, ó, ú, or ǘ, respectively.
  4. Type the third, or rising-falling, tone mark. You can do this with the following keypress: ⌥ Option + v, which will create the accent, and then a, e, i, o, u, or v to create ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, ǔ, or ǚ, respectively.
  5. Type the fourth, or falling, tone make. You can do this with the following keypress: ⌥ Option + `, which will create the accent, and then a, e, i, o, u, or v to create à, è, ì, ò, ù, or ǜ, respectively.
  6. Type the vowel ü with no tone. You can do this with the following keypress: ⌥ Option + u, which will create the accent, and then u to create ü.

Tips

  • To write in either Traditional of Simplified Chinese characters you can use the Pinyin autocorrect feature. Simply type the Chinese character out phonetically, without accent marks, and you will be presented with all of the possible characters to choose from.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://pinpinchinese.com/blog/how-to-type-pinyin-tone-marks-mac-os-x-yosemite/
  2. ↑ http://www.self-learner.com/how-to-type-chinese-pinyin-tones-in-mac-os-x/
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