How do the Japanese type in their own language??

Question

I'v always wondered.
Do they type in Spanish or English and a translator program automatically replace the word with a symbol OR do they chose the symbol 1 by 1 to finish a sentience? But they wouldn't do that because it would take forever.

Answer 1

Here's the Japanese keyboard http://www.casemouse.com/kb/mini/japanese-keyboard.jpg

Answer 2

Oh, it is rather difficult to understand maybe to have this explain by words. It's better to see it yourself if you have chance.
Yeah there is Japanese keyboard. But we can type Japanese without Japanese keyboard by setting your language bar and IME pads.
Japanese have they own character, called hiragana, katakana and kanji. Kanji, the Chinese symbols, can be written by typing the reading in hiragana. The hiragana is written by typing the correspond reading in alphabets.
Since there are many kanjis with the same reading but having different meaning, once you type the hiraganas, automatically there will be one or some kanjis options appears. Just select and done!

Answer 3

They have different input methods: some use the romaji input (letters), and some use the Japanese hiragana/katakana input. The romaji input is really simple: you type what you speak with an English keyboard: ex: watashiwanihonjindesu. You press a key (usually spacebar), and you get some choices of words. You choose the ones that fit your needs. Sometimes the computer cannot make the right guess, you press the arrow keys to move to the error, press the down arrow and make changes.

The other method, the one that uses hiragana/katakana is a bit different. The keyboard may still be an English keyboard, but the layout is different: Instead of A, B, C, D, E... they go by a-i-u-e-o / ka-ki-ku-ke-ko / sa-shi-su-se-so / ta-chi-tsu-te-to / na-ni-nu-ne-no / ha-hi-fu-he-ho / ma-mi-mu-me-mo / ya-yu-yo / ra-ri-ru-re-ro / wa-wo-n...

Q would be associated to a-i-u-e-o
W is to ka-ki-ku-ke-ko
E is to sa-shi-su-se-so
R is to ta-chi-tsu-te-to
T is to na-ni-nu-ne-no
Y is to ha-hi-hu-he-ho
and so on...
So you press on the keys until you find the right syllables, and you spell the words that way.

There are other methods too, but it'd be too long to write it all here.

Answer 4

I use Japanese all the time. How it works is you type the Japanese phonically and the right Kana or Kanji come. If there are several Kanji with the same sound you can easy choose the right one. I hope this helps.

Answer 5

Really the question should be, How did the Japanese pare down their alphabet enough to get a working model of a keyboard? I'd be interested to know.

Answer 6

They do type in their own language. I'm not sure how it works, but I believe that the computer automatically places characters where needed. It's rather complicated.

Answer 7

typing is usually done romanised. Ie. they type on an english keyboard the romanised version of what they want to write. ie
watashihagenkidesu.
They then hit the "Change" button and it gives them a list of kanji they can scroll down till they find the one they are looking for.
私は元気です

Answer 8

They build the characters stroke by stroke or use special keyboards with lots of keys, some of which are struck twice for complex characters. Yes it takes a long time, both to learn the keyboard and carry out the typing.

Answer 9

They have Japanese Keyboards?

Answer 10

i know they use the same keyboard (english letters)... but i still dont understand the rest of it