Keyed up for speed
Primary Six student Huang Shaowen can type an impressive 1,259 Chinese characters in five minutes.
Twelve year-old Shaowen is a student from Chang Li Lu Primary School in Guangdong. She was invited by the University of Hong Kong to display her typing skills here.
Shaowen began learning the Zong Heng Chinese input system about two years ago. It only took her two hours to learn the program.
'[The input method] is not difficult,' said Shaowen. 'It's actually a lot easier than many other programs. There were training sessions at my school in Guangdong, and my teacher nominated me to take part in it.'
Shaowen practises her typing every day from 10 minutes to more than two hours.
'Now that I understand how the program works, all I need to remember is the code each key represents. There is no need to know a specific word before I type it out,' she said.
Shaowen has won various typing competitions. In one contest, she typed 190 words in a minute, competing against professional typists. She came in second, only 18 words behind the champion.
'Shaowen has been able to think more logically after mastering her typing skills,' says Wu Yanying, Shaowen's mother. 'She types out sections of the newspaper. This has helped improve her writing skills and logical thinking.'
