Typing in Kanji

[buck4155967]

こんいちは。　おなまえは Buck です. どうぞしくよろしくおねがいします。

I can type with ひらがな with minimal difficulty, and I am beginning to learn to type かな、but I wanted to ask a question ahead of my current skill level that involves typing in Kanji, because I hope to begin learning to write Kanji characters next week.

Sometimes when I see a printed Kanji character, it is accompanied by ひらがな above it if it is horizontal text, and to the side if it is vertical text.

How do I get ひらがな to appear with the Kanji that I type?

ありがとう。

[mmmason8967]

Sometimes when I see a printed Kanji character, it is accompanied by ひらがな above it if it is horizontal text, and to the side if it is vertical text.

How do I get ひらがな to appear with the Kanji that I type?

These characters are called furigana, which means "sprinkled characters" (I think). The short answer is you can't type furigana using the IME (the software that handles Japanese input).

However, you can enter furigana using a word processor. In Microsoft Word 2010, for example, you insert furigana after you've typed your Japanese text, and it's done by using the Phonetic Guide button in the Font area on the Home tab on the Ribbon (the Phonetic Guide icon is an uppercase "A" with lowercase "abc" above it). Of course, if you don't use Word 2010, that decsription will have meant absolutely nothing...

On to the criticism:-

こんいちは。
Very common typo. It's こんにちは as I'm sure you already knew. To avoid this typo and others like it, always type "nn" when you want ん. If you do that, the IME won't get a chance to let you down.

おなまえは Buck です.
The お at the start is an honorific, so use it for other people's names but never your own.

どうぞしくよろしくおねがいします。
Another typo, I imagine.

ありがとう。
You can't use ありがとう to mean "thanks in advance". ありがとう means something kind-of sort-of, like "the thing you did for me was really great", so it doesn't work until after the deed as been done. If you want to say "thanks in advance" the word to go for is よろしく (which I think is great because it helps you to grasp one of the many and elusive meanings of よろしく).

マイケル

[Tracel]

However, you can enter furigana using a word processor. In Microsoft Word 2010, for example, you insert furigana after you've typed your Japanese text, and it's done by using the Phonetic Guide button in the Font area on the Home tab on the Ribbon (the Phonetic Guide icon is an uppercase "A" with lowercase "abc" above it). Of course, if you don't use Word 2010, that decsription will have meant absolutely nothing...

マイケル先輩、どういう風にふりがなを入れるごとができるか、私も分かりませんでした。私もWord 2010を持っているので、すぐにこの方法をしてみました。 Wow, that is really cool. I am so happy .

Buckさん、
Good luck with typing in Japanese . It is really slow at first, and going back and forth with English to Japanese like they do in these posts seems especially finicky to me. Maybe I am doing it wrong though. The thing I like about using the Japanese word processor is that when a word can have several different kanji, the processor will give you a choice for which one you need. It is a great vocabulary builder. Although this means you also need to be careful that you are not inserting the wrong word

Cheers,
トラセル

[mmmason8967]

マイケル先輩、どういう風にふりがなを入れるごとができるか、私も分かりませんでした。私もWord 2010を持っているので、すぐにこの方法をしてみました。 Wow, that is really cool. I am so happy .

どういたしまして。

Do you know this trick? Type ほし and press the spacebar to get the kanji list. Scroll down.

Other magic words are やじるし、てん、おんがく、さんかく、しかく and まる. I learned this trick from 奈津子先生.

マイケル

[Tracel]

Thank you again for the tips マイケル先輩。

I wondered what would happen if I typed something in Word and cut and pasted it here. This is what happens:

私(わたし)はすごく嬉(うれ)しいです。

Instead of furigana, it automatically put parentheses around the readings.

The other very cool feature I found on Word 2010 was a way to actually use hand writing to input the characters. It requires an input pen system (I use a Wacom Bamboo pad and pen), but then you can "write" the kanji on the pad, select the right one from a list, then input it into your text. I have used this input method on the i-pad and it certainly helps you learn kanji stroke order. Now I have got it on my computer too.

Sorry. I know I'm a bit too overenthusiastic, but COOL.

[mmmason8967]

トラセルちゃん
すごーーいよね！！ありがとうございました！
I didn't know either of those features. And I know where I can lay my hands on a Wacom Bamboo, so I have got to try the handwritten kanji feature!

マイケル

[buck4155967]

Thanks for all of the very helpful replies -- I'm glad I started to start typing so soon!

[community.japanese]

Buck さん、マイケルさん、トラセルさん、
こんにちは
Thank you very much for a perfect help, マイケルsan!!

マイケル先輩、どういう風にふりがなを入れるごとができるか、私も分かりませんでした。私もWord 2010を持っているので、すぐにこの方法をしてみました。 Wow, that is really cool. I am so happy .

どういたしまして。

Do you know this trick? Type ほし and press the spacebar to get the kanji list. Scroll down.

Other magic words are やじるし、てん、おんがく、さんかく、しかく and まる. I learned this trick from 奈津子先生.

Did you!? I didn't remember I mentioned that...oh well, I have extremely short memory
I'm not too sure if I told you another way, but if you type きごう and press the spacebar for candiates,
you'll have a long list of "symbols" as well
By the way, I didn't know how to add "furigana"
Thank you very much for teaching me! I'm sure I've used that function some years ago, but my brain has
limited capacity of memory...

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com