Does anyone know how i could go about typing in Japanese?
Like maybe some on screen keyboard or something.
I only have a basic English Keyboard so if i change the language from the control panel i don't know what key will type what character..
Thank you! it seems to be going alright, it's definitely going to take getting used to though.
Most Japanese IME's (Input Method Editor) work by simply having you type everything in romaji using the alphabet and then pressing the space bar to get a list of options to convert the characters into. For example, in order to get:
初めまして。マットです。
I type:
hajimemashite.mattodesu.
When I press the space bar, it's automatically converted. I could convert it to something differerent as well:
ﾊｼﾞﾒﾏｼﾃ．まっとdeath…
There are various choices available. This is how you're able to choose among different kanji that might be homonyms:
koukann こうかん コウカン 交換 好感 巷間 光環 校勘
You may have seen Japanese keyboards that have Hiragana characters printed on them, but that input method is fairly old and I don't think anyone uses it. Practically everyone, including the great majority of Japanese people, uses an IME like the Google one mentioned by the previous poster. If you watch the video on that page, you'll get a good idea of how it works.
There is a flick-based IME that many Japanese people use on their phones simply because it's so much faster but, generally speaking, almost everyone uses romaji conversion and you should too.
Google's is quite good but I'm sure your computer already has one built-in; you just need to turn it on. Do a Google search for "How to type in Japanese on Windows 7" or whatever you're using and you'll be able to figure it out.
