Writing Japanese katakana/hiragana/kanji and Korean in a normal keyboard?

Question

I have a few penpal japanese and korean friends, and Im trying to learn those two languages. When talking through skype or facebook, I wanted to try writing in japanese and korean characters . Is a real japanese or korean keyboard needed ...? Or is there a function on the pc that allows me to change from the normal alphabet (Aa, Bb, Cc) to japanese and korean characters?

Answer 1

you can type japanese/korean as long as you can see the characters on your computer, it's nothing to do with your keyboard.



test: if you can see these characters, then you are fine: こんにちは... 안녕하세요!



and you don't even need to install anything to type... simply go to this site:



http://www.sayjack.com/type/korean/

http://www.sayjack.com/type/japanese/



the Japanese online IME doesn't support kanji though. but the Korean online IME is very good.



and if you wanna type chinese too, you can go to http://www.sayjack.com/type/chinese/

Answer 2

Japanese Katakana Keyboard

Answer 3

If you have XP, Vista, or Windows 7, there should be this thing called a Language Toolbar. Here's how to find it:



1. Go to the Start menu and open the Control Panel

2. Click on "Clock, Language, and Region"

3. Under "Regional and Language Options," click on "Change keyboards or other input methods."

4. Under the "Keyboards and Languages" tab, click "Change keyboards..."

5. Under the "General" tab, click "Add..." and choose the languages in which you want to type

6. Under the "Language Bar" tab, click the bubble that says "Docked in the taskbar"

7. Click "Apply" and close out of the windows when it finishes applying



When you do that, there should be a small area on your taskbar that says "EN," which stands for English. Click on it and a pop-up menu will appear with your selected languages. There are only some programs that can use the foreign-language keyboards, and Microsoft Word is one of them.



When using the Japanese mode, click on the icon that looks like a skinny letter "A." This determines the input mode, of which you can choose Hiragana, Katakana, and Half-Width Katakana. When you use the Hiragana mode, the computer will automatically translate what you type into kanji, if any is applicable. You can change which kanji is used by highlighting the word, right-clicking, and choosing the correct kanji from the drop-down menu.

Answer 4

Korean is very easy, really only lines and circles (with a few exceptions) put together with 2 or 3 other letters to create a syllable block If Japanese has hiragana, then you can tell the difference between chinese and japanese.

Answer 5

I'm only familiar with Linux and Windows, but there is a thing called an, IME. I'm just going to assume you're on Windows and say this: Go to Control Panel -> Clock/Language/Region (Or something similar, I know it changes per version of Windows, the exact name.) -> Then either "Language and Region Options" or "Change Keyboards or other input methods." -> Click "Change Keyboards" -> Click "Add" -> Scroll down to Japanese and Korean, and under each make sure you hit IME, and not the actual keyboard. Then you'll be able to enter it in Latin characters, and it will come out in Japanese or Korean.

Ganbatte ne -> 頑張ってね (:



Edit: I forgot to mention this: When you enter it in, it's by default going to be in Hiragana. F7 changes it to Katakana, and hitting the space bar when typing brings up a small little menu you can select Kanji from.

Answer 6

Google Translator.