Walter Said:

How do the Japanese and Chinese write their characters on computers?

We Answered:

there are quite a number of ways actually. for chinese at least, one way is like you say, you type 'phonetically' -- it's known as 'hanyu pinyin' and then you get to select from a list of words with that 'spelling'. there's another way which goes by strokes of the characters. chinese characters are not haphazard shapes, but are made up of a set of strokes put together in a certain manner. there is also a defined way of writing, in which you have to write a particular stroke before the next.

hmm... it's something like writing the letter "B" -- we write the straight line down first, before writing the two loops. it's the same for chinese characters. so there is a special keyboard of the strokes. when you type the strokes, the closest match will appear until eventually the word you want. :)

Gary Said:

How do Chinese people learn how to read and also how do they write Chinese characters on the computer?

We Answered:

they learn it coz the teachers taught them that