Installing Japanese Support and Writing Japanese in Windows

[Jason]

The following links give an excellent step-by-step overview of how to setup a non-Japanese Windows system to be able to display Japanese text and how you can enter it yourself.

Installing Japanese support
Writing in Japanese
Installing Japanese support on Windows Vista

One thing I don't think they talk about in detail that's really useful is that you can still type in English even when you have Japanese selected as your input langauge. The Japanese IME (Input Method Editor) has several modes, the 2 we're most interested in are Direct Input (not to be confused with the DirectX technology) and Hiragana. In Direct Input mode, what you type is not modified at all, so you can type as you do normally without it being converted into kana/kanji. The Japanese IME defaults to Direct Input at startup. So what you can do is set your default input language to Japanese IME Standard 2002 (see step 15 in the first link for where this setting is). Now everytime you start your computer, you can simply press Alt+~ (that's a tilde. The little squiggly line that's next to the 1 key on US keyboards) to switch between direct and hiragana input. 簡単でしょう？

[edit] Edited to add article for Vista.

[doriangrey64]

thanks for this.

[Tiduas]

I do just have a question about this. Is there anyway to switch the language to Japanese trough the keyboard and so to Hiragana trough the Keyboard?
What i want is something like this.

Alt+CTRL+A = Swith to Japanese And then ALT+CTRL+H = Swith to Hiragana.

Is there anyway?

[Jason]

You can press Left Alt + Shift to switch languages and Alt+~ to switch between hiragana and direct input once you're in Japanese.

[mikuji]

Jason

I do not have Japanese writing facilities in my work computer (my company does not provide it as standard and bars individulas from adding it) but I have found I can cut and paste japanese script - both kana and Kanji- from the FREE JWPce word processor.

Maybe others can do this too if they do not have the standard facility. JWPce is great because it has an incorporated EDICT so it helps with finding and spelling words too.

Tanks to the Japanesepod 101 team from a great facility and for keeping the podcasts free.

頑張って　ください

[Jason]

That's a good idea. Thanks! ^_^

[YourAverageBoy]

どうもうありがとう

[mikem]

I just want to point out that if you only need to write in English and Japanese it is much easier to delete the English keyboard completely. Then only the Japanese IME will be running and you can easily switch between Direct mode and kana mode by only pressing Alt-~.

[Bueller_007]

I just want to point out that if you only need to write in English and Japanese it is much easier to delete the English keyboard completely. Then only the Japanese IME will be running and you can easily switch between Direct mode and kana mode by only pressing Alt-~.

Actually, it doesn't have to be "only English", it just has to use roman characters. There are a large number of keyboard layouts/input methods you can choose for the "romaji" mode of kotoeri input in Japanese, including French (i.e. AZERTY keyboards), German, Spanish, etc. Just browse to Kotoeri Preferences and you'll see it in the leftmost tab.

Personally, I just use a Japanese iBook. There's a "kana" button on the right-hand side of the space bar, and a roman character/arabic numerals button on the left-hand side of the keyboard. What could be easier? (Plus, I've heard that English-language Apple keyboards don't have the CTRL button next to the 'A' key, which is where I like it for BSD stuff).

[Jason]

The problem is that this thread's for Windows machines, not Macs.

[Bueller_007]

The problem is that this thread's for Windows machines, not Macs.

Oops!

I often try to forget that Windows even exists.

[atomsk]

IME thinks my keyboard is a us, but its a latin1 (german). the keymaps are a little different. For example if i type "kyo" i get "ｋぞ". Does anyone know how to fix this?

[Bueller_007]

IME thinks my keyboard is a us, but its a latin1 (german). the keymaps are a little different. For example if i type "kyo" i get "ｋぞ". Does anyone know how to fix this?

I'm not a Windows user, so I'm not sure, but you might want to check this link:
http://greggman.com/japan/xp-ime/xp-ime.htm

If that doesn't do it for you, go to Microsoft's German-language website and search there. There are enough Japanese-speaking Germans out there that there has to be an easy solution to this.

[ekeko]

Hi Friends,
I have english Windows XP SP2 on my laptop. I got a USB Japanese keyboard in Akihabara, and I what I want is to use all that shortcuts from the japanese keyboard (it means, typing "t" would give me か　and not just "t"). I searched around the web and still got no solution. so far I can use it just as a us-keyboard.

Dont know if this is anyway possible at all. by the way, once I installed japanese Windows on a desktop PC and used this keyboard and it worked as expected. Problem is when you try to do the same in english Windows....

If anyone has any idea, I would appreciate you let me know.

thanks in advance,

Pablo

[mariyo]

Hi Pablo-san,

You need to set up IME (see Bueller's link : http://greggman.com/japan/xp-ime/xp-ime.htm), even if you attach a Japanese keyboard. You also need to define the shortcut you want in order to switch from romaji (Latin alphabet) to hiragana or katakana. As far as I know, the Japanese keyboards are very similar to the US keyboards, with the exception that they have a key designated to be linked to access the IME (the button is located at the top left of the keyboard).

Hope this helps,

Mariyo

Hi Friends,
I have english Windows XP SP2 on my laptop. I got a USB Japanese keyboard in Akihabara, and I what I want is to use all that shortcuts from the japanese keyboard (it means, typing "t" would give me ??????and not just "t"). I searched around the web and still got no solution. so far I can use it just as a us-keyboard.

Dont know if this is anyway possible at all. by the way, once I installed japanese Windows on a desktop PC and used this keyboard and it worked as expected. Problem is when you try to do the same in english Windows....

If anyone has any idea, I would appreciate you let me know.

thanks in advance,

Pablo

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