Fact · Dictation
43words per minute
In the same study, Mandarin Chinese text entered with the built-in Pinyin keyboard reached 43 words per minute, against 123 words per minute by speech.
Checked against its source on October 16, 2026
In the source's own words
“the Mandarin Chinese input rate was 2.87 times faster (123 vs. 43 WPM)”
Comparing Speech and Keyboard Text Entry for Short Messages in Two Languages on Touchscreen Phones, Sherry Ruan et al., Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), 2018, Abstract.
Open the original (DOI 10.1145/3161187)- What it measures
- Participants transcribed short messages in Mandarin on an iPhone, once with speech recognition (Baidu Deep Speech 2) and once with the built-in Pinyin keyboard.
- What it does not show
- Short messages in a laboratory. Pinyin input depends on the keyboard's word suggestions, so the figure says little about other Chinese input methods.
Source
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