Home Forums Off Topic Typing method.

This topic contains 9 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by  Luke 12 years, 8 months ago.

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  • #16578

    BrassBanana
    Member

    When you type in Japanese what method do use?
    There are there multiple diffrent settings and options and I dont know which to use.
    At the moment i have only typed in Kana, so I have it set to each key being one of 46 symbols.
    For example I type の and then I manually change a setting and type ノ by pressing the same key(the k key).This means I type worse in English because I have stuck pieces of paper on my keyboard so i can see what keys represent what Kana. I have heard that apparently hardly any Japanese people type like this, but I didn’t want to use the method where you type the kana in romaji and it comes up in kana.This will get the romaji stuck in my head which I really don’t want.
    I figured that this will probably be clearer when I start using kanji but for now anyway it is a problem.

    #16583

    I type in romaji and then convert to kana. If I wanted to use the kana keyboard, then I would probably just buy a Japanese keyboard(using stickers sound really hard :p) :)

    #16587

    KiaiFighter
    Member

    I bought a Japanese laptop 2 years ago (which has the kana on the keys for those who wish to use it that way) but I have talked to some of my Japanese friends and not one of them use it that way. (not typing romaji style)

    The one exception (and I mentioned in a previous article) is when Japanese people type on their cell phone. As I mentioned, each key corresponds to a consonant sound + the 5 vowel sounds.. Hard to explain.. If I find the other thread, I’ll link it..

    tl:dr – just type in romaji, but if you really want to practice, you should be writing with a pen and paper. period.

    #16588

    winterpromise31
    Moderator

    I use the romaji method and it hasn’t interfered with learning kana at all. Just make sure you practice kana by more than one study method and you should be fine: Anki, http://www.realkana.com/, or http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/sheaa/projects/genki/hiragana-timer.html are all good resources.

    Good luck!

    #16593

    BrassBanana
    Member

    @Mark Weber. I can’t see any reason why using stickers would be any harder then using a Japanese keyboard. It’s just little bits of paper with the kana written on them stuck on to my keyboard with white tack.

    @KiaiFighter. I think I get what you mean about the mobiles, sounds like the Japanese equivalent of how people text in English.

    I thought everyone would say that they type romaji style. I guess if everyone one does it there’s no reason I shouldn’t. I still think id prefer doing it the other way though, buy that does mean it takes me ages to type anything.

    #16617

    KiaiFighter
    Member

    But you said you type worse in English too.
    Japanese keyboards have the kana as well as the English characters on the keys! So your little bits of paper should include that information if you are not confident in your English typing.

    #16618

    thisiskyle
    Member

    Yeah, in line with what Kiaifighter said; every Japanese person I’ve asked types using romaji. Although they tend to do things a bit differently. If your used to Hepburn style you would do the following:
    つ=tsu
    し=shi
    ふ=fu
    ち=chi

    A lot of Japanese people type them this way (not that it makes a difference but it is few key strokes):
    つ=tu
    し=si
    ふ=hu
    ち=ti

    Also, if you’re not already using it, I suggest Google IME for typing in Japanese. It’s much better than the native windows IME (I can’t speak for mac).

    #16620

    RavenTwoFive
    Member

    @thisiskyle I use the Microsoft IME and it works perfectly fine.

    つ=tsu
    く=ku
    ちょ=cho

    And only having to hit spacebar to change it over to kanji/katakana is pretty convenient.

    So far though, in terms of IME’s, the one I downloaded for my Android phone is pretty annoying. (Which is understandable, it’s hard to put 46 characters plus the buttons to alter/space things on a halfscreen keyboard)

    #16621

    thisiskyle
    Member

    Yeah, I’m not saying the Microsoft IME is bad at all, I just think the Google one is better.
    And yeah, you can type them that way in Google IME as well as Microsoft IME. I’m just saying that Japanese people will type tu instead of tsu and si instead of shi. Both work fine. They also have a tendency to write that way sometimes too. So if a Japanese person tries to write Hiroshima in romaji, the might write Hirosima.

    #16626

    Luke
    Member

    I type in Romaji and Google IME converts it to Hiragana or Katakana depending what I have selected, on my Mac I use Kotoeri for a similar effect. :)

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