Postby kc8ufv » January 30th, 2008 6:15 am
There's a couple ways to do that.
Assuming you are running WinXP, in your language bar you should have either an EN or JP. Other operating systems have similar options, IIRC, OSX uses flags instead. The directions below are based on XP, though. Make sure it is set to JP. Next, a couple icons over, you will see one of the following:
あ Hiragana mode. With Japanese selected, (JA) CTRL-Caps Lock is a keyboard shortcut to this mode. This mode is what you will use to enter hiragana and kanji. Use your spacebar after entering a word or two. But be careful to select the right kanji. A good rule is if you don't know it, don't use it. If the wrong kanji pops up, press the space bar again and a list will apear. You can select either by pressing the number, your arrow keys, or your mouse. Enter or continuing typing will accept your selection.
カ Full-width katakana mode. this is the mode you will most often use for typing katakana. I am unaware of a keyboard shortcut for this mode.
Ａ Ｆｕｌｌ－ｗｉｄｔｈ ａｌｐｈａｎｕｍｅｒｉｃ － Ｙｏｕ ｕｓｅ ｔｈｉｓ ｍｏｄｅ ｗｈｅｎ ｙｏｕ ｗａｎｔ ｆｕｌｌ ｗｉｄｔｈ ａｌｐｈａ－ｎｕｍｅｒｉｃ ｃｈａｒｅｃｔｅｒｓ， ｉｎｃｌｕｄｉｎｇ ａｌｌ ｔｈｅ ｓｔａｎｄａｒｄ ｐｕｎｃｔｕａｔｉｏｎ ｏｎ ｙｏｕｒ ｋｅｙｂｏａｒｄ．Ｉｔ ｗｉｌｌ ｃｏｍｅ ｏｕｔ ｌｏｏｋｉｎｇ ｌｉｋｅ ｔｈｉｓ ｉｎｓｔｅａｄ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｎｏｒｍａｌ ｔｅｘｔ ｙｏｕ ｓｅｅ ｅｌｓｅｗｅｒｅ ｉｎ ｔｈｉｓ． Nｏｔｅ ｔｈｅ ｓｔｒａｎｇｅ ｐｌａｃｅｓ ｗｏｒｄｓ ｗｒａｐ ｂｅｔｗｅｅｎ ｌｉｎｅｓ．
_ｶ Half-width katakana. This is not used very often, although it does have the keyboard shortcut of Alt-Caps Lock.
_A Half-width alphanumeric - This is how normal roman charecters are typed when in Japanese input mode. If you are in the Japanese IME and wish to type a URL, make sure you are in this mode! This also applies to e-mail addresses. Everything typed in this mode will be encoded the same way as if it were typed in English, although you will still see your typing underlined, and your computer may attempt to change words when you press enter or space. The keyboard shortcut for this mode is Shift-Caps Lock.
A Direct Input - This will directly type the letter you see on your keyboard. If you click kana, it will directly type half-width katakana. You won't use this mode very often.
With any of the kana modes above, there are two ways of entering the kana. One, and probably the more common way is romaji input. Simply type what you want in romaji and as you type something that can be converted to kana it will be. NOTE: if you need to type something like 「こんにちは」 you actually need to type "konnnichiha". The second n makes it convert to the final ん.
The other way of typing in the kana modes (this is the way I use) is direct input. For this method, almost every key on your keyboard is mapped to a kana charecter, with [ adding ゛ to the previous charecter, and ] adding ゜ to it. For example to type 「おはようございます」 you would type "6f94b[x[ejr" on a US standard keyboard. This mode is accessed by clicking where it says kana in the language bar. Note that you want to make sure kana is not clicked when typing in the alphanumeric modes, or you will end up with kana instead.
Last edited by kc8ufv on February 7th, 2008 2:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
