Tutorial
This page is an introduction to Rime-Moran and Ziranma in English. Learn Moran in 5 minutes!
Ziranma is first and foremost a coding scheme for Chinese characters, developed by Zhinong Zhou in the 1980s. It elegantly combines both the pronunciation (shuangpin) and the shape (auxiliary code) of the character into a compact code.
(Ziranma is also the name of a now defunct implementation by its inventor. We will only talk about the coding.)
Rime-Moran is an open-source implementation of Ziranma by Project Moran. It not only implements many advanced features originally from Ziranma (the software) but also innovates many new features. It's also the state-of-the-art shuangpin Rime schema.
Shuangpin (lit. double pinyin) describes the pronunciation of a Chinese character using only two letters (hence the name). For example, the pinyin for the character 爽 is shuang (toned shuǎng), and its shuangpin counterpart is ud.
If you know pinyin, using the following chart to convert any (toneless) pinyin into shuangpin:
A shuangpin schema can be used on its own. The Ziranma Shuangpin schema is supported by all current pinyin IMEs due to its popularity in history. Therefore, even if you never learned the auxiliary code, you can benefit from learning shuangpin anyway.
The auxiliarty code is also referred to as shape code. It describes the shape of the character using only two letters.
The rules of determining the auxiliary code of any character is simple enough:
- Find the radical (A), remove it from the character, and find the remaining largest character (B).
- Combine the initials of shuangpins of A and B.
Examples:
- 好: nz <= radical=女(nv), remaining=子(zi)
- 思: xt <= radical=心(xn), remaining=田(tm)
Due to considerations of improving the overall performance of Ziranma, there are a few irregular components, which are all listed in the following chart in red:
For any given character, you know its shuangpin (denoted YY), and its auxiliary code (XX).
- To type any character: try typing Y, YY, YYX, YYXXo, YYXX/ (where o and / are filler code)
- To type any word: just put characters together.
You may notice when typing Y, YY, YYX, that some candidates are marked ⚡. These candidates are 'fixed', and their code is called 'quick code'. You should learn them as you use Moran. Such fixed candidates remove a large part of uncertainty from a sentence-making IME and can drastically improve your typing speed.
(Beware: in the default installation a special feature called "ijrq" is enabled. ijrq, or 出簡讓全, literally means "candidates have quick code, and the full code is given away". That is, if a candidate has a quick code, it will be delayed when its full code is typed. For example, 思 has a quick code "six", but typing "sixto" 思 won't be the first candidate. You can disable it, of course, but you probably want to keep it enabled anyway because there'll be less selections.)
This is only a very brief introduction. There are hundreds of features in Moran. You're welcome to read the full manual (in Chinese).