Given the number of Kanji, how do you type/text in Japanese? - Feed Post by hrael
Given the number of Kanji, how do you type/text in Japanese?
posted by hrael
Comments 8
If I'm not mistaken, a lot of Japanese keyboards have a sort of auto correct where a you type out the katakana or hiragana it turns into a Kanji symbol as needed
Yes if your system supports japanese when you type in an actual word in hiragana and hit enter the program will then give you a list of applicable Jukogo Kanji or Katakana writings for that word.
Any computer/smartphone can type Japanese. Everyone on here should make sure they can type it on their computer/phone. You don't need to own a Japanese keyboard/phone/computer.
All you need to do is to add a new input language to your device (by looking in your system's "Settings" or "Control Panel"). Once you've added Japanese input and have switched to Japanese, you will see an "A" icon for typing English or romaji or whatever, and you will have an "あ" icon for typing hiragana.
People who are learning Japanese and Japanese people type kanji by selecting the hiragana icon. To type the kanji for cat (ねこ "neko"), which is 猫, they tap the following keys on their keyboard:
ｋｅｙ ｏｕｔｐｕｔ
－－－ －－－－－－
Ｎ n
Ｅ ね
Ｋ ねk
Ｏ ねこ
After they press those four keys (N E K O), their screen shows the hiragana for cat (ねこ) with a line underneath it.
On many systems, you will see a pop-up "conversion list" on the screen while you are typing, but on some systems you will need to press a key such as SPACEBAR after typing the word to make it appear. This conversion list shows list of possible kanji you can change ねこ to. It usually lists many different kanji, but usually the most common/likely kanji you want will be somewhere near the top of the list.
To turn ねこ into the correct kanji for cat, you just scroll down the conversion list until you find 猫, then select it with your mouse/finger/keyboard, and then it changes what you wrote from ねこ to 猫.- If you want to add Japanese input on your system, a very straightforward, quick and simple option is to get "Google Japanese Input". This is very popular, easy to use, and has some of the best features anyway. It's also the one I choose to use on my computer.
For computer - Windows (10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, ...), Mac OS, etc:
https://tools.google.com/dlpage/japaneseinput/eula.html
For Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.japanese - All windows based PC have Japanese installed by default. You just need to go into the language setting and turn it on. A quick google search can guide you on how to do this. Never heard of this google PC japanese, though I can 2nd that google for android is pretty good.
- The default Japanese input that comes with Windows 8 (and 10?) is MS IME version v.15. This is about on par with Google IME.
However, the default Japanese input that comes with Windows 7 and Vista is MS IME v.10. Windows the default Japanese input that comes with Windows XP is v.8.1. If you have Windows 7 or below, I'd recommend switching to Google Japanese Input which is up-to-date, has a cleaner interface, and useful features that are missing in the old versions of MS IME.
I use Google Japanese Input when I'm using Windows 7, but I on Windows 10 I had both installed and chose to use Microsoft's one instead.
You can just try Google's one from that link I posted and have both installed at the same time, until you decide which one you like best. It's really quick and hassle free to uninstall if you decide you don't prefer it. I didn't like Google's one as much as Window 7's when I first installed it, but after a while I noticed how much better it is than Window 7's outdated MS IME v.10. Even if you're using Windows 8 or higher, it's worth giving Google's one a shot anyway. ^^ - (bleh, weird typing errors everywhere in that post) ^^;
Excellent and in-depth answers here. Makes perfect sense! Thanks :)
