type 'shouji' → 手机 · 收集 · 首级 → pick 手机

The keyboard offers you every character that matches the sound. You have to recognise the right one.

🎒 What you need

the shared phone, about 20 minutes
permission to add a keyboard, or the course's browser typing pad

✋ Do this

Open the typing pad in the browser. Type 'nihao' and watch 你好 appear in the options. Select it.
Type 'shouji' and look at the list of candidates. Several different words share that sound. Find 手机 — mobile phone — and choose it.
Type each of the five words of this module by their Pinyin and select the correct character from the list every time.
Now type your own name in Chinese if you know it, or type 我是学生 as a full sentence.
Write down on paper which words the keyboard offered you that were NOT the one you wanted. That list is your homework — those are words that sound identical to ones you know.
Show one person the sentence you typed on the screen and read it aloud to them.

💡 Why it works

Pinyin input is how almost every Chinese person actually writes on a device, and it flips the skill you need: you must recognise characters rather than produce every stroke. Practising recognition against a list of similar-sounding options is one of the fastest ways to sharpen it.

🔥 Challenge

Type a short message in Chinese and show it to someone. Have them ask you what each character means.

📖 New words

手机 shǒujīmobile phone

电话 diànhuàtelephone

号码 hàomǎnumber

名字 míngziname

写 xiěto write

📱

Pinyin Typist

Tap when you have finished this module.