It took me ages to figure this out, starting with the wikipedia page for Japanese Input Methods, so I've written up how I learned to type here: http://caitlancan.blogspot.com/2013/07/t...anese.html

Interesting. Like most people I use the romaji input method, type 'k a' and 'か' comes out, but the kana input method looks like it would be faster if you were used to it.

There are, by the way, two other free IMEs,
Google, https://www.google.co.jp/intl/ja/ime/
Baidu (yahoo!): http://ime.baidu.jp/type/
I consider both of them to be substantially better than Microsoft. Baidu's handwriting input is the best of the free IMEs　(important for those times you can't pronounce a character but can write it), but google has been improving.

There are also premium IMEs that cost money but I've never bought one.

Cool, thank you. I'll check them out. The Microsoft one is a little clunky but it seems worth it for the convenience.

@Caitlan

Not a Japanese keyboard related post but I don't care. I don't know why but I just thought you would find these two links, hmm... interesting???

Link 1
Link 2