FAQ: How do I type in Japanese?

[mrmoonfield2239]

You can use this site here >>>>http://www.branah.com/japanese or use what computer gives you.

[team.relationships]

Hi Mrmoonfield,

Thank you for the usefull link!

Please stay tuned! Every week we have new lessons for you! And if you have any questions, feel free to ask us.

Enjoy learning Japanese with us!

Cheers,
Gergő
Team JapanesePod101.com

[cloa513ch2629]

Anyone have this problem- something IME flips out and refuses to transform romaji to Japanese. It just puts the wavy line in and then no matter how many times I change the mode then it won't transform. I have a Fujitsu Japanese Version Win 7 computer.

[mmmason8967]

Anyone have this problem- something IME flips out and refuses to transform romaji to Japanese. It just puts the wavy line in and then no matter how many times I change the mode then it won't transform.

This is the behaviour you get if you're in full-width-alphanumeric or half-width-alphanumeric input modes. You get roman letters with a wavy underline but they won't transform into kana no matter what you do. That's because the IME thinks you're typing English, not romaji.

You can toggle between full-width-alphanumeric and kana input using SHIFT+CAPS, so maybe you're occasionally hitting this key combination by mistake?

マイケル

[paloma_ill]

マイケルさん、

本当にありがとうございます！
I hope it helps cloa513ch2629-san.

Another option that might help is to use Google Translate keyboard, then you don't have to install or download anything

Please let us know if you have any other questions!
Paloma
Team JapanesePod101

[cloa513ch2629]

I don't see the option to get Japanese on Google Keyboard- their subpage doesn't seem to list it.

[paloma_ill]

Hi cloa513ch2629-san,

Here's the link:
https://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#ja/en/
You just have to type, and it'll change to Japanese characters!

I hope it helps!
Paloma
Team JapanesePod101

[cloa513ch2629]

That's for English to Japanese.

[cloa513ch2629]

Anyone have this problem- something IME flips out and refuses to transform romaji to Japanese. It just puts the wavy line in and then no matter how many times I change the mode then it won't transform.

This is the behaviour you get if you're in full-width-alphanumeric or half-width-alphanumeric input modes. You get roman letters with a wavy underline but they won't transform into kana no matter what you do. That's because the IME thinks you're typing English, not romaji.

You can toggle between full-width-alphanumeric and kana input using SHIFT+CAPS, so maybe you're occasionally hitting this key combination by mistake?

マイケル

I have to do some awful SHIFT-CAPS commands with this keyboard as its a Fujitsu computer/keyboard- the Caps lock key by itself　changes the IME mode (does do caps lock as well)　even it though it also has an IME button as well which does the same thing. Shift plus Caps is needed to convert turn on/off capslock without IME. It has manufacturer specified drivers so we can't update much.

[suchenderweise7690]

I have written a little how-to for windows 7 a while ago. It's far from perfect, but it might be a little extra hint for the ones who are looking for a way to change input modes by keyboard or use their native layout for Japanese input.

http://nejtj.blogspot.com/2011/09/howto ... anese.html

To be able to type as my keyboard is labelled is necessary for me to prevent additional typing errors like messing up y and z. I used above hint to change my keyboard layout, since my computer neither has a US keyboard layout nor an English Windows. It worked perfectly using my German Windows 8-64bit or Windows 8-32bit. It also worked for both German Window 7.

But there is this one computer where an English Windows 8-32bit is installed.
Unfortunately, changing the keyboard layout didn't work out, labels and typing still don't match. I have no clue why, but I'd like to find out, if I made a mistake somewhere (even though I triple checked) or if it is a general problem.
Thus my question is, does this hint work on your computer who has English Windows 8 installed? Do the labels of your non US-Keyboard match afterwards?

Here, Macintosh has decided for a much simpler solution!

Thanks

[R3belD0gg]

Not sure if anyone else has run into this problem, but I'll post about it anyway. After I upgraded to Windows 8.1 (64-bit) IME kind of started acting up a bit. I've had a couple of situations where it just won't give me the kanji I want (though I can't remember what I was typing now... and that may have nothing to do with the upgrade.)

But the problem I had was pressing WINKEY+SPACEBAR wasn't switching me to Japanese input. The little window would come up showing the switch to Japanese IME, but I would then have to click on the tool bar to enable kana input. Annoying... I've recently found that pressing WINKEY+SPACEBAR then ALT+~ (tilde, by the 1 key) will switch me to Japanese. After that, WIN+SPACE works to switch back and forth until I restart my computer. Not sure why it started doing this... but if anyone else has had this problem, that's a workaround I found.

I'd like to know if there are any other/better Japanese input options? Special keyboards? It'd be nice to have dedicated switch keys, and a better way to switch from hirigana to katakana. Not sure why it's separate key combos and not just a toggle... I always forget if it's ctrl+caps or alt+caps for katakana.

[mmmason8967]

I don't have any experience of using the IME with Windows 8. The WIN + SPACE combination sounds like it's a new thing with Windows 8; in Windows 7 that key combination makes all open windows transparent so that you can see the desktop. Previous version of Windows use ALT + SHIFT instead--I don't know if it still works with Windows 8.

It's helpful to understand that there are two different things happening when you use the IME. First, Windows allows you to select as many different input methods as you want. Most of the time you'll only have a single input method set up, which will be your local keyboard layout--the US keyboard if you're in the USA, the UK keyboard in Britain, and so on. If you're learning Japanese you install the Japanese IME, and then you have two input methods. If you live in Israel and you're learning Japanese, you may very well end up with three input methods since Israelis tend to use Hebrew and English input methods, and Japanese IME would make a third. The important point here is that the ALT+SHIFT or WIN+SPACE key combinations cycle through all available input methods; if you only have two input methods (i.e. English and Japanese) it feels like it's toggling (switching backwards and forwards), but it isn't.

Once you get that idea it's fairly easy to understand that you can only select hiragana or katakana after you've selected the Japanese IME, because those options only exist within the Japanese IME. The IME usually starts off in alpha mode rather than hiragana--since we're using versions of Windows with menus and dialogs in English, that's probably the safest option (imagine a user on a shared machine accidentally switching input methods and having everything they type come up in hiragana).

Once you've selected the IME you can switch between alpha mode and kana mode using ALT plus the key that's at the top left corner of the main block of keys on your keyboard. On a US keyboard that key is the tilde; on the UK keyboard it's the key with the three punctuation marks that nobody ever uses. The big drawback for users outside the USA is that the alpha mode of the Japanese IME uses the US keyboard layout: if you use a UK keyboard like I do, it's not easy to find punctuation marks as the US and UK keyboards have most of them in different places.

If you can't remember the keystrokes for selecting katakana or hiragana, there's a handy trick I learnt off 奈津子先生: type the text in hiragana and then press F7, and it turns into katakana (similar to the way pressing space turns it into kanji). Once you get the hang of it, it's quicker and easier than switching into katakana, typing the characters and then switching back out again.

マイケル

[R3belD0gg]

I didn't know about F7! That's great!

Pressing Alt+Caps for katakana then Ctrl+Caps for hirigana was annoying... I would always press Ctrl+Caps for katakana... I have it down now but still. I'll use F7 from now on, that's much better.

I have a pretty high end gaming mouse with about 17,000 buttons on it (maybe a bit exaggerated... I'm not good at math.) and I have a ton of hotkeys and macros mapped to it. If I had more desk space I'd get a keyboard with some programmable keys, which would solve that problem pretty well. Single key switching input methods, another to toggle kana.

[community.japanese]

Thank you for your help, マイケルさん
I'm glad "IT retarded" 20th-century's heritage like me can still help people with technology

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[acristianedalva_499684]

If anyone would like to use an online Japanese keyboard, this one is pretty good:
http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/hiragana.htm

It allows choosing hiragana, katakana, kanji and also converts writing from English to Japanese.