[yc12340]

> a keyboard isn't something you should install without some careful consideration because they can be used as keyloggers

To be frank, Android should not allow input methods access to internet/filesystem in the first place. But that would have hindered Google's own keylogger, so...

[thaumasiotes]

I use Google Pinyin Input. (Which seems to have been deprioritized or something, but still...)

The general shape of input methods that let you produce 汉字 is that you provide some type of input that hints at the character(s) you want, the input method displays a menu of options that match your input, and you select the correct option from the menu. For example, if I'm using pinyin entry and I type `shi`, I can choose from 是, 时, 事, 使, 试, 世, 市, 十, 式, 师, 石, 室, ......, which are all pronounced shi. (And heck, those are just the top 12 suggestions. They mean things like "ten", "be", or "stone". The `shi`s go on for several pages.)

You can enter more than one character at once. If I type `bhys`, I'll see the suggestion 不好意思 ("sorry").

The presented options are chosen based on what the input method predicts I'm most likely to want. They are context-sensitive -- the order of suggestions will change depending on what I typed just beforehand -- and the likelihoods and the phrases are collected from what people elsewhere in the world type. Suggestions can be quite current! Without an internet connection, this would be a much worse experience; the predictions would be wrong or useless much, much more often.

[eozoon]

It wouldn't be as bad as you might think without prediction - back in the days with "dumb" input method, the word choices would be listed by frequency of use, and you'd remember which choice the word you want would be.

So you'd type shi and click the first choice for 是, second choice for 时, etc without even needing to read the options since they'll always be in that slot. If there's a word you use frequently but is listed late in the list you can change that in the settings file. Same for shortcuts like bhys and you can always add your own shortcut.

The Chinese keyboard I use does not have internet access and only does prediction based on set phrases - eg if you type 时 it'd offer 間, 代, 事, 空 etc; if you type tmd it'd give you you-know-what, and I prefer it over the Google keyboard since my muscle memory can do most of the work instead of my eyes.