I'm pretty sure all Japanese use the kana input on an iPhone and disregard the romaji option. For us English speakers, does this also make sense? I'm really slow at the kana input and the romaji input just feels slow... Should I suck out up and make myself learn kana input?

Ehh, I have an Android phone, but the Japanese-supporting keyboards still come with both options. I've heard that kana input is faster when you get used to it, and I've tried using it for a while, but it was always slower to use. You may have better luck, but if not, I wouldn't force myself to use it.

The 12-key kana input was the only input available on feature phones so everyone is very proficient in it. With the advent of smart phones it went from multiple presses to the swipe type which made it an even faster way to input Japanese. These two reasons are why it is pretty much the only input method anyone uses.

I learned kana input because there was nothing else available when I got here and thus used it for both English and Japanese until I got a smartphone. These days I use QWERTY for English but still use kana for Japanese because its much faster and easier to use. If you are currently slow at both types of Japanese input then it probably is worth continuing to use kana input because you'll get much faster with more and more practice.

I learned kana input because it was there and even though I'm nowhere near native proficiency it is much faster and more accurate. (I use the gesture-like tap-and-slide method. multi-tapping seems annoying and prone to error.)
Anyway, the buttons are bigger so I can very quickly and without error hit the right button - those graphic keyboard keys are much smaller in comparison, and you have to go slower to avoid error, plus you have to select two tiny buttons for each kana.
Short of it is, I never use the romaji input anymore, even though I had no prior experience with kana input and was never forced into it in any way.
I did use some free learning-game apps to learn, which really only amounted to maybe 3 hours of guided practice (not at once... in twenty minute or less blocks of 'playing' over a few days) .... after that I was just using the mode by default.

I love the iPhone Kana keyboard to death. Seriously, next to inputting text via Kotoeri on Mac, it's the fastest way for me, and everything about it just reeks of smart design.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:(I use the gesture-like tap-and-slide method. multi-tapping seems annoying and prone to error.)

Multi-tapping is just a holdover from hardware keypads. It's infuriating on smartphones compared to flicking.

I'll look for the game type of apps. I switched my phone back to romaji just because I'm particularly slow with the kana keyboard still so it gets frustrating when I'm trying to look something up or type a quick message. However, it sounds like I'll like the kana input better once I get the hang of it. I get a lot of typos with the romaji input and it feels slow typing in multiple letters with one finger etc. On a full keyboard I like the romaji input a lot though.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:I learned kana input because it was there and even though I'm nowhere near native proficiency it is much faster and more accurate. (I use the gesture-like tap-and-slide method. multi-tapping seems annoying and prone to error.)
Anyway, the buttons are bigger so I can very quickly and without error hit the right button - those graphic keyboard keys are much smaller in comparison, and you have to go slower to avoid error, plus you have to select two tiny buttons for each kana.
Short of it is, I never use the romaji input anymore, even though I had no prior experience with kana input and was never forced into it in any way.
I did use some free learning-game apps to learn, which really only amounted to maybe 3 hours of guided practice (not at once... in twenty minute or less blocks of 'playing' over a few days) .... after that I was just using the mode by default.

kraemder Wrote:I'm pretty sure all Japanese use the kana input on an iPhone and disregard the romaji option.

My wife is a native Japanese speaker and uses romaji for Japanese input on the phone. Could be due to the fact that her english is very good, but it's a data point for someone who could just as easily use kana input and chooses romaji because it's easier for her.

Ha interesting. That pretty much killed my motivation right there. That and I'm not finding any kana typing games in the English app store for the phone. I'm still curious though so maybe later I'll do it.

kraemder Wrote:Ha interesting. That pretty much killed my motivation right there. That and I'm not finding any kana typing games in the English app store for the phone. I'm still curious though so maybe later I'll do it.

Hmm, I'm thinking of giving the kana layout another try now. If you search for タイピング ゲーム in the iOS app store you might find something, since some of the ones for Android I found were originally only on iOS, if you're still trying to find kana layout typing games, that is.