Japanese Writing Practice

[Nika07]

All of the lessons are set up to translate Japanese in to English. Which is awesome as it helps me to learn new kanji and grammar. But I still think that the hardest thing for me to do is to translate what I have learned back in to Japanese. I have become very good at listening and reading Japanese, but seem to lack a certain level of proficiency in speaking and writing the language.

I know that the writing questions beta is up in the learning center, but is there any place where say you give us a sentence in English and we try to write/type it in Japanese? I really think this would be extremely helpful to those of us wishing to be able to converse in Japanese.

Veronica

[mftuchman9943]

I would really appreciate a complete set of notes, aimed at Newbies, to help us type in the correct hiragana.

It would be worth it to have a video lesson to show people how to install this. But after that, it would be very helpful just to have a lesson in how to input Japanese words. For instance, how do you type in the word zekk[oo]ch[oo] ?

How do we type in words that have special markers on them, like long vowel, or doubled/stopped consonants such as gakko?

[oo] represents a long o, an o with a bar over in with the romaji.

This word appears in the introductory segment, so please show us how to actually type it.

[Kiliman]

First of all, to type Japanese text, you should follow the steps in the "FAQ: How do I type in Japanese?"
http://www.japanesepod101.com/forum/vie ... php?t=5007

The steps are pretty straightforward.

Once you have it installed, it's easy to type Japanese text.

Switch to the Japanese language from your language bar (I have mine hovering at the top of the screen.) You can use the keyboard shortcut: Alt + Shift to toggle between languages.

Once you have the Japanese language selected, you want to select the desired input mode.

Press Ctrl + CapsLock to switch to Hiragana input mode
Press Alt + CapsLock to switch to Katakana input mode

You are still typing romaji, but the IME will convert your text to HIragana/Katakana depending on your input mode.

To type the word zekk[oo]ch[oo], simply type:

zekkouchou which will convert it to ぜっこうちょう.

Notice that the double/stopped consonant was converted to ぜっこ. The little tsu (っ) actually applies to the previous character.

The long vowel sound is usually represented by the u (う) character, like　ちょう. Sometimes you double the vowel like ああ、いい、うう、ええ、おお。It depends on the word you're writing.

Anyway, when you type your romaji, it will convert to Hiragana as you type. When you complete your word, either press Enter to keep the Hiragana, or press Spacebar to have it converted to Kanji which would look like this: 絶好調. Then press Enter to accept the Kanji.

Just practice entering Japanese by typing in the dialog or vocabulary from each lesson and you''ll get the hang of it in no time.

Remember these keyboard shortcuts:

Alt + Shift: Toggle between English and Japanese
Ctrl + CapsLock: Switch to Hiragana input mode
Alt + CapsLock: Switch to Katakana input mode
Spacebar: Convert to Kanji, press again to give additional options.
Enter: Accept entered characters

Good luck!

キリマン

[Kiliman]

Oh, and another thing you'll have to get used to is that when you are typing the particle は as in 私はキリマンです、you must type "ha" even though it's pronounced "wa".

Like I said, the more practice you do, the easier it gets.

キリマン

[mftuchman9943]

I already have the software end taken care of, but your excellent explanation should also serve to guide others. I'll comment on the word.

zekkouchou which will convert it to ぜっこうちょう.

Notice that the double/stopped consonant was converted to ぜっこ. The little tsu (っ) actually applies to the previous character.

..It depends on the word you're writing.

I think the Japanesepod people (not to be confused with the pod people from The Body Snatchers) should provide some guidance on how to type in the Hiragana in the lesson notes. This is particularly true if the word is not obvious at the level at which it is being introduces.

Anyway, when you type your romaji, it will convert to Hiragana as you type.

I still managed to get the wrong hiragana several times. When I took the Hiragana over to translate.google.com, I got "Zekkou Butterfly", which is not what was intended.

I'll try your spelling, too. Do you think It's worth pointing out somewhere, besides here, the trick of putting a u in the romanization in order to get the long vowels?

Remember these keyboard shortcuts:

Alt + Shift: Toggle between English and Japanese
Ctrl + CapsLock: Switch to Hiragana input mode
Alt + CapsLock: Switch to Katakana input mode
Spacebar: Convert to Kanji, press again to give additional options.
Enter: Accept entered characters

This is helpful.

[Kiliman]

I still managed to get the wrong hiragana several times. When I took the Hiragana over to translate.google.com, I got "Zekkou Butterfly", which is not what was intended.

I checked out Google Translate as well and got the same thing if you leave it as Hiragana. When I converted to the Kanji 絶好調 I got the translation: Best condition.

Rikaichan shows it as: In perfect form; going swimmingly.　I get the same translation for Kanji as well as Hiragana. ぜっこうちょう

If you haven't installed Rikaichan, I highly recommend it. You can download the Firefox version here http://www.polarcloud.com/japanese

You can download a version for Google Chrome here https://chrome.google.com/extensions/de ... fpcebammhp

Unfortunately there isn't a similar tool for Internet Exploreｒ。

Good luck!

キリマン

[Jessi]

A video explaining how to do this wouldn't be a bad idea, seeing as so many people want to learn how to type in Japanese. Thank you for the idea!

[brad12]

I mean is there any trick to memories the Japanese words..or Japanese phrase.Have you any website about Japanese?