Abstract: A phonetic symbol based Chinese input method for computer and apparatus thereof is provided. The method includes pressing keys to enter a numeric string corresponding to a set of phonetic symbols wherein each key represents one of 0 to 9; activating a piece of software to assign the set of phonetic symbols to a corresponding numeric string wherein the piece of software divides the string into a symbol zone and a tone zone; wherein the symbol zone includes one or two consonants, zero, one or two rhymes or zero, one or two compound rhymes; activating a Chinese characters output module to receive the string by using word prediction based on frequently used Chinese characters wherein the numeric string has numerals corresponding to the set of phonetic symbols; searching a Chinese characters database to find matched Chinese character(s); outputting the matched Chinese character(s); and returning to beginning.