how do people text in Japanese? - Feed Post by kawaiilove
how do people text in Japanese?
posted by kawaiilove
Comments 9
Third party website or add on for firefox or chrome.
By "text" I think you mean on a phone. There are two apps for Android, Simeji being the better of the two, and Google IME being the other. The iPhone does not support native Japanese input unless the phone is configured as such.
If you mean on a PC, go to your control panel, find something related to language, and enable the Japanese IME. It comes with every computer Windows XP and up. If you're using a Mac or Linux, I recommend downloading the Google IME. While not as good as the Microsoft IME, there's barely a difference. Unlike the mobile version, Google IME for the desktop is amazing!- This link will help if you are using a Windows PC:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/type-chinese-japanese-character-languages#1TC=windows-7 
you mean like text messages or just writing in japanese here?
Yes text, like on the phone? There's obviously too many characters for one keypad so I was just wondering how its done :)- It uses a swipe mechanism. There are 9 keys, pressing each one gives you あ、か、さ、は、and so on. If you swipe up, on the key, you'll get う、く、す、ふ、 and those. Same applies for right, down, and left. You can text very quickly with this.
Well, Japanese is typed on computers using romaji input mode usually. Romaji (doesn't need seven of the alphabet's letters--C F J L Q V X--so only needs 19 letters to type kana and kanji. I think romaji input mode is most popular on phones too?
HOWEVER, there are actually mobile phones (cell phones? keitai denwa?) which have kana input mode. Here's a wikipedia page with an example of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_input_methods#Mobile_phones
The kana tables are 10 colums of 5 rows (50 sounds table). There are 10 numbers on a phone keypad, so this worked out well. The '1' key has 'あ' written on it, '2' has 'か', '3' has 'さ', etc. So, pressing '3' twice = し, 3x = す, 4x = せ, 5x = そ.
There's also 'flick input' on touchscreen phones, where the kana are laid out the same way on the buttons. In flick input, instead of clicking multiple times to get the vowel ending you want, you instead flick your finger over the button in a specific direction to choose it.
Here's a video showing off flick input:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvwGkQTaAAQ
And here's a video explaining how flick input works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LY0-8-PXSc- Thanks for explaining that better than me, lol
- Cool! Thanks everyone :)
