40. A computer-implemented method for receiving text-input, comprising: presenting one of a pair of alternately displayed key planes of a virtual keyboard on a touch-sensitive surface, each of the pair of alternate key planes including a partial set of phonetic symbols from a phonetic alphabet, a first key plane of the key plane pair including a set of initial phonetic symbols of the phonetic alphabet, a second key plane of the key plane pair including a set of final phonetic symbols of the phonetic alphabet; receiving a sequence of phonetic symbols through the first key plane, the sequence of phonetic symbols representing phonetic spellings of a plurality of Chinese characters without all corresponding final phonetic symbols and tone marks; presenting a list of Chinese character combinations corresponding to the sequence of phonetic symbols; receiving user input to select one of the list of Chinese character combinations; and entering the selected Chinese character combination as text input in the user interface.
40. A computer-implemented method for receiving text-input, comprising: presenting one of a pair of alternately displayed key planes of a virtual keyboard on a touch-sensitive surface, each of the pair of alternate key planes including a partial set of phonetic symbols from a phonetic alphabet, a first key plane of the key plane pair including a set of initial phonetic symbols of the phonetic alphabet, a second key plane of the key plane pair including a set of final phonetic symbols of the phonetic alphabet; receiving a sequence of phonetic symbols through the first key plane, the sequence of phonetic symbols representing phonetic spellings of a plurality of Chinese characters without all corresponding final phonetic symbols and tone marks; presenting a list of Chinese character combinations corresponding to the sequence of phonetic symbols; receiving user input to select one of the list of Chinese character combinations; and entering the selected Chinese character combination as text input in the user interface. 41. The method of claim 40 , wherein the second key plane displays a predetermined set of final phonetic symbols, independent of the initial phonetic symbol selected in the first key plane.