B 04
How to Type in Japanese
How do you TYPE in
Japanese?
Index
• Setting Up Japanese Font
•
•
•
•
•
•
How do you type in Japanese?
Tip 1: ん
Tip 2: smallっ
Tip 3: Katakana
Tip 4: Kanji
Tip 5: Particles を
Setting Up Japanese Font: Page 1
If you want to type in Japanese, make sure to set up the
Japanese font in your computer, first. It’s easy.
1
Open Word. Click EN in the tool bar.
2
Choose Show the Language bar.
Setting Up Japanese Font: Page 2
3
The Language bar pops up.
Click the small arrow pointing down. Choose Settings….
4
Choose Add.
Setting Up Japanese Font: Page 3
5
Scroll down and find Japanese (Japan) – Microsoft IME.
Tick the box. Click OK then Apply.
Setting Up Japanese Font: Page 4
6
Go back to the Language bar. Choose Japanese.
7
Click the key board icon. Choose Microsoft IME.
8
Click A Input Mode.
Choose Hiragana.
Setting Up Japanese Font: Page 5
When you see あ next to Input Mode, you are ready!
You can always go back to English in the Language Bar.
Or, super handy short cut key to change English – Japanese
is:
Alt + Shift
How do you type in Japanese?
To type in Japanese, you basically type it in Roma-ji. Roma-ji literally
means “Roman Characters”. They are used to tell you how to read
Japanese words in English characters.
See some example of Roma-ji on top of words in Japanese.
a
su shi
ni ho n go
あ
すし
にほんご
So, when you type “a” then あ appears.
When you type “sushi” then すし appears.
When you type “nihongo” then にほんご appears.
Make sure you know that it’s NOT a translator. If you type “Japanese” in
Japanese Input mode, then じゃぱねせ appears which does not make
sense. Type how you say it in Japanese like “nihongo” for “Japanese”.
How do you type in Japanese?
So, to type Japanese in Roma-ji, Hiragana chart helps.
W
R
Y
M
H
N
T
S
K
わ ら や ま は な た さ か あ a
り
み ひ に ち
し
ん る ゆ む ふ ぬ つ す
き い I
く
う
u
れ
め へ ね て せ け え e
を ろ よ
も ほ の と そ こ お o
Tip 1: ん
To type ん, type “n” twice.
nn
ん
Tip 2: small っ
Small つ can be typed as “double consonant”. Simply add an
extra consonant of the following Hiragana’s consonant. So in
other words, “double the consonant”.
yatta
やった
matte
まって
kakko
かっこ
kocchi
こっち
Tip 3: Katakana
To type a word in Katakana, just type the word in Hiragana
then press Space or F7.
あにめ
F7 or
Space
アニメ
おーすとらりあ
F7 or
Space
オーストラリア
If the word is spelled correctly in Hiragana then press space, your
computer knows that the word should be in Katakana so changes the
word into Katakana. This means that if you don’t spell the word
correctly in Hiragana (or if your computer thinks the word is
uncommon), your computer won’t change the word into Katakana.
On the other hand, F7 changes anything into Katakana.
Tip 4: Kanji
To type a word in Kanji, just type the reading of the kanji in
Hiragana then press Space key.
いち
にほん
Space
Space
一
日本
If you don’t get the right kanji even though you
spelt it’s reading correctly in Hiragana, just keep
pressing Space key.
What your computer does is to give you a list of kanji that has
the same reading. For example, there are so many kanji that
read かん, so you need to choose the right kanji that you want
from the list that your computer gives you. So just keep
pressing Space key until you find the right kanji.
Tip 5: Particle を
To type を, type “wo”.
wo
を
Also to type two other particles of は (“topic”) and へ
(“direction”), make sure to type “ha” and “he”
respectively (instead of phonetically as “wa” and “he”).