Typing Japanese on my PC

[bobkuruma4]

Hi Minna-san

This is probably really dumb but I cannot figure out how to type Japanese on my computer. Can anyone help? I have a friend in Hiroshima who I write to often and I would like to at least be able to send emails in hiragana. Thanks so much.

[Neil53]

I use this web site and then copy and paste.

http://ajaxime.chasen.org/

[zakojanai]

You said PC, so here's how to do it on Vista:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Window ... 91033.mspx

Here's XP:
http://www.greggman.com/japan/xp-ime/xp-ime.htm

Here's how to do it for a mac:
http://redcocoon.org/cab/mysoft.html

When you type, you basically just type it in romaji and the hiragana will appear. You'll then be able to select the kanji or katakana by pressing the space bar and then scrolling up or down with the arrows. It takes a minute to get the hang of, but it's not hard. One thing that took me a while to figure out was how to type small hiragana and katakana characters like ぁand　ァ. To do this, type l and then the character you want, so l + u = ぅ but u = う.

[bobkuruma4]

Neil53 and zakojanai, thanks so much for your help I will try both. I really appreciate it.