Promoting Cantonese Input Keyboard TypeDuck to Ethnic Minorities in Hong Kong
- 2024
- News
- Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies
TypeDuck is a Cantonese input keyboard that allows users to type Chinese characters with Cantonese Jyutping romanisation. This keyboard was developed by the Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies (LML) and publicly released in January 2024. This keyboard provides word translation prompts in English, Indonesian, Nepali, and Urdu to aid Cantonese learners in selecting the correct Chinese characters.
From October 2023 to June 2024, LML’s team has been actively approaching secondary schools. The team hosted over 15 workshops for teachers and non-Chinese speaking students to introduce TypeDuck to them and to teach them basic Jyutping. They also visited community centres that serve ethnic minorities in Hong Kong, and successfully reached out to ethnic minority students and adults.
TypeDuck received positive feedback from the participants of various workshops. It also attracted attention on different social media platforms from not only users in Hong Kong, but also users in mainland China and other countries.
This project is led by Dr Lau Chaak-ming from LML and funded by the SCOLAR Language Fund. TypeDuck is available on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Interested parties can download and install the keyboard at: https://typeduck.hk.
Students use TypeDuck to learn Jyutping at a local secondary school
The team introduces TypeDuck to ethnic minorities at a community centre
Demonstration of TypeDuck on Windows interface
