The universal text input technique described herein addresses the difficulties of typing text in various languages and scripts, and offers a unified solution, which combines character conversion, next word prediction, spelling correction and automatic script switching to make it extremely simple to type any language from any device. The technique provides a rich and seamless input experience in any language through a universal IME (input method editor). It allows a user to type in any script for any language using a regular qwerty keyboard via phonetic input and at the same time allows for auto-completion and spelling correction of words and phrases while typing. The technique also provides a modeless input that automatically turns on and off an input mode that changes between different types of script.