PURPOSE: To facilitate the easy shift operation and thus eliminate the high-degree expertness by carrying out the shift for selection of the Chinese character via the key of the character and its peripheral keys.

CONSTITUTION: Key 11 or key 19 posseses the same function as the conventional shift key. For the character "ei I at the upper left within key 11, key 11 and then the upper left key 12 are pushed. For the character "ei II at the upper center, key 11 and then the upper center key 13 are pushed. And for the character "ei III at the center, key 11 is pushed twice respectively. Here, "ei I, II, III" are the same pronunciation words but the different kind of japanese characters. For the corner at the upper left of boad surface 9, keys 12, 13, 14, 18 and 19 are defined as the character keys to which the Chinese characters are given. Thus key 20 or 26 is the shift exclusive key to which no Chinese character is given.