How do Japanese people write on a computer keyboard?
Hi,

I started to learn japanese ten days ago, and since I want to learn Hiragana, I'm writing the words I know using this keyboard:

https://www.branah.com/japanese

as you can see, I don't write like on a mobile, using latin letters, but I select each Hiragana,so I have to know the sound of the Hiragana, otherwise I cannot write: is this the way japanese people write on a computer keyboard or do they use always the latin letters?

おねがいします

Question

How do Japanese people write on a computer keyboard?
Hi,

I started to learn japanese ten days ago, and since I want to learn Hiragana, I'm writing the words I know using this keyboard:

https://www.branah.com/japanese

as you can see, I don't write like on a mobile, using latin letters, but I select each Hiragana,so I have to know the sound of the Hiragana, otherwise I cannot write: is this the way japanese people write on a computer keyboard or do they use always the latin letters?

おねがい します

Answer

The majority of the Japanese use the QWERTY layout, and after typing a chunk of words in romanized characters, hit the space bar to get the Japanese scripts, and then enter.
※There are several versions of romanized characters in Japan, so which one you need to use depends on your computer's configuration.

Very few people use kana input, although if you master it, your typing speed will become, theoretically, twice faster because you don't need to hit two or three keys to get one Japanese letter.

Answer

Hi , as I myself had this issue some years ago, somewhere on the web I found an article intended to study whether PC-typing "killed" Kanji( calligraphy). Actually, the article was not to bent to critic the IME( input method editor) because someway typing Romaji helps student to recall the Kanji as they see it appear. As a matter of facts, when Japanese people don't recall the Kanji, they simply write it in Hiragana (which is not an unusual fact, Japanese can confirm this). Good studies.

Answer

Ciao Andrea,
take a look at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_input_methods
Hope it helps,
      tano