# How do Chinese/Japanese typewriters work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 20, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351 "2011-01-20T17:39:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![George11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4bbf92/32.png) [@George11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George11)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/1 "2011-01-20T17:39:13Z")
I’ve tried searching the internet for this but I can’t seem to find a definitive answer. Lots of pictures and historical information but no actual hard info on how they work. The straight dope website I’ve found addresses how typing in those languages on a computer works but I’ve done this myself, I’m familiar with that. What is apparent from it is that this method would not work with a typewriter. So. How? I guess with Japanese they might just use hiragana? But Chinese? They’ve no alphabet to fall back on, just the characters. Some kind of system whereby the type the radicals that make up the characters then press space to go onto a new one? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/2 "2011-01-20T17:58:32Z")
> [@George11](#): > > I guess with Japanese they might just use hiragana? No, writing a sentence in all-hiragana would make it extremely difficult to read. Practically speaking, everyone wrote by hand until electronic word processors became widespread in the 1980s. There were mechanical [Japanese typewriters](http://www.geocities.jp/kyo_oomiya/jpntype.html) for some special applications, with 1000 or more characters. They were never common; I’ve never seen one myself. ---
**Author:** ![George11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4bbf92/32.png) [@George11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George11)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/3 "2011-01-22T01:13:31Z")
bump? ---
**Author:** ![Waffle\_Decider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/77aa72/32.png) [@Waffle\_Decider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waffle_Decider)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/4 "2011-01-22T01:42:54Z")
I’ve never heard of a Chinese typewriter either. Before personal computers became common and computer character input methods matured to what they are today, everyone just wrote everything by hand. ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/5 "2011-01-22T02:28:37Z")
A quick search brought up these two references: > **[Chinese typewriter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_typewriter)** > > A Chinese typewriter is a typewriter that can type Chinese script. Early European typewriters began appearing in the early 19th century. However, as the Chinese language uses a logographic writing system, fitting thousands of Chinese characters on the machine needed much more complex engineering than typewriters using a simple Latin alphabet, or other non-logographic scripts. An ordinary Chinese printing office uses 6,000 Chinese characters. Chinese typewriters, and similar Japanes Hou-Kun Chow... And in our own backyard: > **[How can the Chinese use computers, since their language contains so many...](https://www.straightdope.com/21342285/how-can-the-chinese-use-computers-since-their-language-contains-so-many-characters)** Both sites seem to give a basic idea of how the Chinese typewriter worked. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/6 "2011-01-22T02:51:47Z")
[The Master speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1138/how-can-the-chinese-use-computers-since-their-language-contains-so-many-characters) ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/7 "2011-01-22T03:03:53Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > [The Master speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1138/how-can-the-chinese-use-computers-since-their-language-contains-so-many-characters) Also noted in the post directly above yours. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/e19adc/32.png) [@6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/8 "2011-01-22T03:15:49Z")
My only guess is that Chinese and Japanese typewriters work a lot harder than the Western kind. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/9 "2011-01-22T03:28:32Z")
I’ve seen them in action. It’s a lot more like typesetting than a typewriter. Not quite sure how to describe it but the operator would pull the character from a big grid and put it in a slot and then hit the type key. The wiki article above kinda describes it. Wierd thing, people who did this had been “typing” for years, and they were really fast. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/10 "2011-01-22T06:31:45Z")
I’ve seen one in person. It looks nothing like a western typewriter. There’s a giant metal matrix of little boxes, each box contains the type to make one character. Above it is a mechanism that can be slid to any position over the matrix. The “typist” slides the mechanism over to the character he wants to type. Then he pushes down on a lever. This grabs the type character, lifts it out of the matrix, and presses it against ink and the paper. ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/11 "2011-01-22T07:24:03Z")
I just came in to thank the OP for giving me new analogy to use. “Geez, this is more complicated than a Chinese typewriter.” ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/12 "2011-01-22T09:50:20Z")
To extend on the OP: Does the Gutenberg invention of movable type even make any sense in a language with 50,000 characters? To print a book, did the Chinese have to manually engrave every page like people did in the 15th century or did they have all (important) characters somehow stored? ---
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/13 "2011-01-22T10:42:59Z")
[Here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na8Hcn3UNfU) a video of a Chinese typewriter in action. The audio’s in Swedish, unfortunately, but there is a brief explanation in the text underneath. I don’t understand how the typist can line up the moving thingamajig with the exact character he wants, without making a mistake. Everything looks so tiny and fiddly. It would have me screaming! ---
**Author:** ![Waffle\_Decider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/77aa72/32.png) [@Waffle\_Decider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waffle_Decider)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/14 "2011-01-22T13:02:18Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > To extend on the OP: > > Does the Gutenberg invention of movable type even make any sense in a language with 50,000 characters? To print a book, did the Chinese have to manually engrave every page like people did in the 15th century or did they have all (important) characters somehow stored? As far as I know, Chinese printing presses worked the same way as Western printing presses. While there was a much larger set of movable types to be maintained, they could be reused many times, and I imagine that had got to be more efficient that custom engraving every single thing that you print. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/15 "2011-01-22T13:50:57Z")
> [@Kiyoshi](#): > > [Here’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na8Hcn3UNfU) a video of a Chinese typewriter in action. The audio’s in Swedish, unfortunately, but there is a brief explanation in the text underneath. > > I don’t understand how the typist can line up the moving thingamajig with the exact character he wants, without making a mistake. Everything looks so tiny and fiddly. It would have me screaming! Awesome video. In terms of productivity, note that each character represents a word. In typical English prose words average about 6-ish characters each, plus a space. So the operator is putting ideas on paper about 7 times faster than it initially appears. My understanding is that Chinese uses fewer words than English for equivalent concepts (fewer modifiers & glue words mostly), so the speed multiplier might really be more like 10x. What really amazed me was when I realized that \*if \*the operator is looking at the working face of the type slug itself, then he/she is looking at each character upside down when trying to pick out the correct one. But not the upside down that you get by rotating 180 degrees in the plane, as if holding a printed page with the top at the bottom. This is the upside down that comes from rotation front-to-back about a horizontal line; in other words a top/bottom mirror image of what the resulting character will look like. Imagine learning to do that fast! ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/16 "2011-01-22T15:08:05Z")
Back in the early 80s, I saw one used. Quite slow and hard to use. It should be noted that no one uses Japanese typewriters any more. They weren’t commonly used, most things were hand written until reasonably priced word processors because common in the late 80s/early 90s and gradually replaced handwriting. The first company I worked in in Japan, in 1990, was a translation, documentation and printing company, and part of the work was inputting text from handwritten originals. > [@From the Master](#): > > This is just Chinese we’re talking about. Japanese, now … they say Japanese is really complicated. Sad to say, we don’t have space to discuss it here. Just get down on your knees and thank G-O-D for the A-B-C’s. Uhmm. No. Japanese is much simpler to type than Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/17 "2011-01-22T16:31:54Z")
Slowly. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/18 "2011-01-22T16:49:19Z")
> [@TokyoPlayer](#): > > Uhmm. No. Japanese is much simpler to type than Chinese. Are you talking about input methods for computers and word processors, or are you saying Japanese has fewer characters in common use? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/19 "2011-01-22T22:41:41Z")
**TokyoPlayer** very well may be referring to the relatively low number of Chinese characters, known in Japanese as _Kanji_, used in Japan. As discussed on [this Wiki page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji#Orthographic_reform_and_lists_of_kanji), the lists of Kanji used in Japan are not that large (comparing approximately 3,000 characters to the purported 100,000+ total of all Kanji). There is also the issue that Japanese does have a native syllabary of 48 symbols, each symbol representing one syllable. Typing the symbol for MA only requires one keystroke in Japanese but still requires two keystrokes using the Pinyin system for Chinese. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2011, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351/20 "2011-01-22T22:58:31Z")
> [@statsman1982](#): > > I just came in to thank the OP for giving me new analogy to use. > > “Geez, this is more complicated than a Chinese typewriter.” DEM! I was gonna make that joke. 😃 Considering that I studied Chinese for a year, I can only say that MAN I am so happy they invented computers. 😃 Also, most likely, the typeset-pieces (whatever they are called) are most likely arranged in some kind of order. I have a couple or three Chinese dictionaries, and in order to look words up via their Chinese characters (Incidentally, called “Hanzi” in Chinese; means exactly the same thing “Kanji” does in Japanese, from what I understand), you would look the word up via the first radical used in the character. So yeah, crash course in Chinese lettering :D. Practically all of the characters in Chinese are constructed from the same 127 simple characters (known as “Radicals”), which are pieced together in many varying nightmarish configurations. Typically a character in Chinese will have two or three such radicals, placed in varying orders and sizes (they get smaller if you need to fit more into the same character, of course).Typically there will be a radical on the left side or the top that is considered the “first” Radical, because it would be the first one you’d draw (sorry, the first one you’d _write_. As my Chinese teachers constantly reminded me, you don’t _draw_ Chinese characters.) The radicals, when combined, might give you some idea of what the character means, and if you’re very intuitive and you’re having a good day, will even give you a clue how to pronounce it, with combinations of complete characters indicating larger concepts in a similar fashion, though sometimes admittedly it will only make sense AFTER you look it up and go “Oh, OK, I guess I can get that.” But yeah, back to the point, in a dictionary, and maybe in this typewriter, the rows of characters might be lined up by what Radical they use as their first radical, and then within each row or column, they are similarly ordered via their subordinate radicals (the radicals themselves being ordered via stroke order, with the lowest-numbered radicals being the ones you can do with only one stroke of the pen). I don’t know any of this for a fact, it might all be in the Wikipedia article which I haven’t read yet, it’s just my slightly-educated guess on how I imagine they would do this. it’s also possible that each typewriter has the characters in an arbitrary order, or in whatever order the user has them set up in, and he just gets used to knowing where he left that character for “Door” the last time he needed to type “Camera Shutter”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-chinese-japanese-typewriters-work/568351.md?page=2)