Where Japanese teachers and students help each other

Getting Started!

How do I see Japanese on my PC?

You'll probably need to make sure you have a font installed that has the Japanese characters in it. Most current modern Operating Systems (Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X, major Linux distributions etc) come with such fonts installed already. For an older OS like Windows XP, you will probably need to enable support for Asian Languages. We'll walk through this in our guide to getting your computer setup to see and type in Japanese as below.

Free Japanese Fonts for your Computer

Here are a few good links to download free Japanese fonts:

http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Fonts_Japanese.html
http://www2.wind.ne.jp/maniackers/designfont.html

Setting up a Mac OS X for Japanese

Japanese is built-in, and already loaded. You just have to activate it.

Navigate to [apple logo] -> System Preferences -> International -> Language

If you don't see "日本語" listed under the "Language" tab, click the "Edit List..." button. Scroll through the list and check the box next to "日本語".

Next, click the "Input Menu" tab. Scroll through the list and make sure the box for "あ Kotoeri" is checked. Also, at the bottom, there is an optional box "Show input menu in menu bar" that you can check to see the currently running input method next to your clock.

Windows Instructions

Installing the Japanese IME is the best place to look for good instructions. GMAN: Windows XP Japanese Input is also very thorough.

A detailed tutorial with screenshots for Windows XP can be found here. Or go straight to Microsoft.

Setting up Windows XP for Japanese

Navigate to Start -> Control Panel -> Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages Tab

Check "Install files for East Asian languages" -> Details -> Add

Select "Japanese" from the drop down list and press OK

Click Language bar. Check "Show language bar on desktop". Click [EN] (English) and change it to [JP] (Japanese). Click "Input Mode" and change it from A (Direct Input) to あ (Hiragana) or ア (Katakana).

A good guide about setting up language and using the language bar is here http://greggman.com/japan/xp-ime/xp-ime.htm

Using a Japanese Keyboard

Windows

Some instructions for Windows users: http://www.kurnspatrick.com/Support/keyboardmapping.htm

Macintosh

Mac supports Japanese keyboards out of the box with very little/no configuration.

Linux / XWindows / X.org

Linux also supports Japanese keyboards out of the box, but if your mapping is incorrect, it's a simple fix.

If your keyboard mapping is wrong in Linux, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf as root with the following command.

http://thejapanesepage.com/sites/all/themes/newsflash/images/tjp/rowsbak1.png); background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; ">sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Look for the InputDevice for "Generic Keyboard". It should look like similar to the following:

http://thejapanesepage.com/sites/all/themes/newsflash/images/tjp/rowsbak1.png); background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; ">Section "InputDevice"          Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
          Driver          "kbd"

          Option          "CoreKeyboard"

          Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"

          Option          "XkbModel"      "pc105"

          Option          "XkbLayout"     "us"

          Option          "XkbOptions"    "lv3:ralt_switch"  

EndSection

Change the "XkbModel" and "XkbLayout" options to Japanese layout like so:

http://thejapanesepage.com/sites/all/themes/newsflash/images/tjp/rowsbak1.png); background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: repeat repeat; ">        Option          "XkbModel"      "jp106"        Option          "XkbLayout"     "jp"

Save the file, and restart the X server by rebooting or hitting <ctrl>+<alt>+<Back Space>

Windows Mobile 5

For this system, you will need Bagoj's Japanese language pack, and if your PDA's display is QVGA, also the QVGA files.

Except for needing to decompress the QVGA files on a PC, all the following work is done on the PDA itself.

1. Download and install the cab. If you have a VGA device, skip to step 4.

(QVGA ONLY DEVICES, Contine...)

2. Download and decompress the QVGA files.

3. Place these files in the Windows directory, overwriting the files with the same names from the main cab. I did this by simply decompressing these files to a folder on a memory card my PDA can accept, and copying them with the file manager on the device.

(ALL DEVICES Continue)

4. Reset your device.

You will now have a window that can be moved almost anywhere on the screen. the first button turns the IME on and off, the second selects the type of character to input when in keyboard or character recognition modes.

Multibox will allow you to directly input your character by drawing them in the boxes. Stroke order seems to be important.

Radical List allows you to select Kanji by radical.

Stroke list allows you to select Kanji by number of strokes.

Character Autocomplete allows you to draw a partial Kanji, and select the appropriate one from a list. Stroke order seems important.

Some of these may display a security warning initially, saying that it requires running a program from an untrusted publisher. Simply tap yes to get that specific editor. Normally, this only will happen the first time an editor is run, also, this will normally only affect the QVGA devices.

Download the main cab here.

Download the QVGA files here.

of getting you setup to type in Japanese on your particular Operating System. :)