Typed Chinese with the Zhuyin input method switched off and got su3cl3? Paste it in to get the Zhuyin and the characters back: 你好. Standard and ET keyboards, and Zhuyin to keys.
Zhuyin Keyboard Decoder
Loading the character list…
The other way: which keys type a Zhuyin syllable?
Characters and readings from the Unicode Han Database, Unicode 18.0.0, © Unicode, Inc., Unicode License v3. Everything runs in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere.
How to use the Zhuyin keyboard decoder
Paste the letters and digits that came out when Zhuyin input was switched off — su3cl3, say. Upper or lower case both work.
Most people type on the standard (大千) layout printed on the keys. The page detects the layout; switch to ET (倚天) by hand if that is yours.
Each syllable gets its most common character first. Mandarin has many characters per sound, so this is a guess; every candidate is listed below it.
Tap a candidate and the text above takes it. Then copy the result.
Why su3cl3 happens, and how it turns back into 你好
Keyboards sold in Taiwan carry two labels on each key: a Latin letter or digit and a Zhuyin symbol. With the Zhuyin input method on, the S key types ㄋ; with it off, the same key types the letter s. So 你好, spelled ㄋㄧˇ ㄏㄠˇ, comes out as su3cl3 — s for ㄋ, u for ㄧ, 3 for the third-tone mark ˇ, c for ㄏ, l for ㄠ. Nothing was mistyped; the keys were read as English. Turning each key back into the symbol printed on it is the certain part of the job.
Where one syllable ends
A Zhuyin input method sends a syllable only when a tone key is pressed: 3, 4, 6 and 7 are the third, fourth and second tones and the neutral tone, and the space bar is the first tone, which Zhuyin leaves unmarked. That is why su3cl3 splits at its two 3s into two syllables. The neutral tone is the odd one out: its dot is typed after the syllable (2k7) but written in front of it (˙ㄉㄜ, 的). The input method drops each symbol into its slot — initial, medial, final — whatever order the keys came in, and this page does the same. Two symbols in one slot usually means a typo, so it is flagged rather than quietly overwritten.
From Zhuyin to characters: the part that is a guess
ㄕˋ can be 是, 事, 世, 市, 試 and dozens more. A real input method picks from the words around it and from what you usually type; one syllable on its own has no single right answer. This page ranks every syllable's characters by how common they are, offers the first as a guess and lists the rest to tap. The counts are Unihan's kHanyuPinlu, taken from the 1986 Frequency Dictionary of Modern Chinese — mainland text, so the traditional order is skewed in places: 后 still comes before 後 for ㄏㄡˋ. Two corrections are made (麼 before 么, and 髮 rather than 發 for hair); for the rest, tap the right one.
Standard and ET keyboards
The layout printed on the keys is 大千, which input-method software calls the standard layout. The ET layout comes from the ETen (倚天) Chinese system of the DOS era and puts initials on Latin letters that sound alike — ㄅ on B, ㄆ on P. Both are one symbol per key, so both decode exactly; the page tries each and keeps the one that reads as more Mandarin syllables. The Hsu (許氏) layout puts two symbols on some keys and needs a dictionary to tell them apart, so it is not offered.
What a string like su3cl3 is made of
Zhuyin has 37 symbols — 21 initials, 3 medials and 13 finals — plus 4 tone marks: 41 keys on the standard layout.
The standard layout's number row reads ㄅㄉˇˋㄓˊ˙ㄚㄞㄢㄦ from left to right; all four tone marks sit on digits.
The first tone has no mark at all; on the keyboard it is the space bar.
The neutral-tone dot is typed after a syllable and written before it: 2k7 is ˙ㄉㄜ.
我是 (wǒ shì, "I am") types as ji3g4: j is ㄨ, i is ㄛ, g is ㄕ.
One Zhuyin syllable often has dozens of characters: in this page's traditional list, ㄐㄧ has 66.
The character lists cover Big5's 13,064 characters and GB 2312's 6,763.
Mandarin has only about 1,300 toned syllables; the MOE dictionary of Taiwan lists 1,337.
The ET layout puts ㄅㄆㄇㄈ on B, P, M and F — the same letters pinyin uses.
Getting the Zhuyin back is certain; picking the character is the guess, which is why every candidate is listed.
Frequently asked questions
-
The Zhuyin input method was off, or switched to English mode. Each key stands for a letter and a Zhuyin symbol, and with the input method off only the letter is left.
-
The Zhuyin always is; the characters are not. One Zhuyin syllable fits many characters, so the page puts the most common first as a guess and lists the rest to tap.
-
The standard (大千) layout is the one printed on the keys. By default the page reads your text both ways and keeps the one that gives more Mandarin syllables; switch by hand if it guessed wrong.
-
The first tone. Zhuyin writes no mark for it, so input methods end a first-tone syllable with the space bar.
-
No tone key followed it, so an input method would not have sent it yet. The page looks it up as first tone and says so.
-
On the standard layout the comma, full stop, slash, semicolon and hyphen keys are Zhuyin symbols (ㄝ ㄡ ㄥ ㄤ ㄦ), so they are read as Zhuyin. Keys off the layout, such as ? and !, are kept as they are.
-
Yes. Open "The other way", type Zhuyin such as ㄋㄧˇ ㄏㄠˇ, and it shows the keys: su3cl3.
-
The counts come from 1986 mainland text, which writes both words as 后, so its count includes the uses of 後. There is no data to split them reliably, so tap 後 when that is the word.
-
No. Hsu puts two symbols on some keys and needs a dictionary to tell them apart, so it cannot be decoded exactly.
-
No. The character list is downloaded once and every conversion runs in your browser.
Method & sources
How it computes
Keys to Zhuyin by libchewing v0.5.1 key2pho.c (standard 大千 and ET 倚天 layouts); symbols placed in initial/medial/final slots and a syllable ended by a tone key or space, as a Zhuyin IME does. Candidate characters per syllable from Unihan 18.0.0 (kMandarin, kXHC1983, Big5/GB 2312), ordered by kHanyuPinlu counts.
What this tool implements
- Both keyboard layouts are libchewing's own key tables (key2pho.c key_str[0] standard and key_str[4] ET) against its symbol order; a test checks each has 41 distinct keys and pins the standard number and home rows. Layouts that put two symbols on one key (Hsu, ET26) are not offered, because they cannot be decoded exactly.
- Every Zhuyin syllable the page knows is typed and decoded back to itself on both layouts (1,336 traditional syllables, test-asserted), and every one is a syllable the site's Zhuyin kernel reads — the kernel tested against all 1,337 toned syllables of the MOE 重編國語辭典修訂本.
- Characters are offered, never asserted: the first candidate is labelled a guess and all are listed. Order is kHanyuPinlu, a 1986 mainland corpus; a count is used only for a reading the character itself has (so 發 does not take 发's fà), and in traditional mode a form that is also another Big5 character's simplification is counted no higher than it (麼 before 么). The remaining skew (后 before 後) is stated on the page.
Sources
- libchewing v0.5.1, src/common/key2pho.c (key_str[] keyboard tables and ph_str symbol order), chewing/libchewing on GitHub, LGPL-2.1: https://github.com/chewing/libchewing/blob/v0.5.1/src/common/key2…
- Unicode Han Database (Unihan), Unicode 18.0.0 — kHanyuPinlu (《现代汉语频率词典》, 1986), kMandarin, kXHC1983, kBigFive, kGB0, kTraditionalVariant, kSimplifiedVariant: https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr38/
- 教育部《重編國語辭典修訂本》 — the 1,337 toned syllables the Zhuyin kernel is checked against: https://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/
Pick up where you left off
Stored only in this browser — never sent to our servers.