There is no simple solution to this problem folks.
Er, there is - pick a language and make that the standard....
.... which of course is the sticking point of this thread.
For those advocating (ahem!) Madarin.... perhaps you would switch your computer over to use the Madarin character set... and then:
Because the Chinese language is a logographic language in which one "character" corresponds roughly to one "word" or meaning there are vastly more characters, or glyphs, than there are keys on a standard computer keyboard.
To allow the input of Chinese using standard keyboards a variety of keyboard input methods have been designed.
Keyboard input methods can be classified in 3 main types: by encoding, by pronunciation, and by structure of the characters. The following are just some samples of Chinese input methods. Many of those input methods have variations. Full Pinyin and Double Pinyin are variation of the Pinyin input method. In addition, the methods which require the user to select a character from a menu generally have sophisticated methods for guessing which characters the user intends based on context.
Different people are most comfortably with different methods and each standard has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, for someone who is already familiar with pinyin, the pinyin method can be learned most quickly. However, the maximum typing rate is limited, and learning the system is difficult for some who doesn't know pinyin. Wubi takes much effort to learn, but expert typists can enter text much faster than the phonetic methods. Because of these factors, there is no likelihood of a "standard" method evolving.
