I'm getting a new laptop, and I have the option of a Japanese International keyboard with kana subtitles, or a regular English keyboard. Is there any advantage to having the kana subtitles that would outweigh the disadvantage of the Japanese layout?

More broadly, how do people actually type in Japanese?

I really don't see the point. It's only used when you write half width kana which you pretty much never do, and when you need to, you can simply write full width and convert to half width.

I type in Japanese like everyone else does... write in romaji which is automatically turned into kana, use space to convert into kanji.

I bought a japanese keyboard before I ever typed Japanese on a computer.. So I had no idea that romaji input was already the standard way to type. Japanese people might even type using this romaji input method (thought I noticed this in a dorama but could be wrong).


You won't be missing anything other than some kana senselessly placed across your keyboard.

Haha, I saw that too. I though they used a different keyboard like Korean but it seemed they didn't. Or maybe some do but some don't....?

They use slightly different keyboards where the spacebar is smaller in favor of putting some IME options on the actual keyboard. However, everyone uses an IME typing in romaji. That's just how it's done.

I never typed in a japanese keyboard, but that micro tiny little spacebar looked very anoying.

There is a way to type where one key equals one kana... but apparently no one uses it.

The only nice thing about having a Japanese keyboard, in my opinion, is the one key to switch between inputs. However, for me at least, that definitely doesn't equal out to the smaller backspace and the larger enter key. That just makes me angry.

Also realize that much of the punctuation and some other keys are switched around. It pisses me off to no end when I'm typing on the school's computers and I have to press shift+7 to type an apostrophe. I also almost always use my right hand's thumb to press the spacebar, so that tiny-ass spacebar gets really annoying really quickly.

Just stick to using a regular English keyboard and use IME for Japanese.

The tiny space bar is indeed annoying. It's bad enough with all the rubbish windows keys and multimedia nonsense the keyboard manufacters like to cram in; with another four IME keys the result is really cramped and unpleasant.

Silly really, since the only one of the IME keys I've ever seen anyone actually use is the one to switch between direct-input and romaji->kana mode. All the others do is cause confusion when accidentally pressed (easy to do when you're going for the space bar).

Plus, unless you're using a pre-installed Windows, you have to configure the hardware driver especially, otherwise the IME keys don't work and you get all the punctuation in the wrong place. Gah! Stick with US/UK layouts and use Alt+` as the input mode toggle key.

nest0r Wrote:Handy thread, I was just wondering whether romaji input is standard in Japan.

Yes.

Quote:Is the keyboard the woman uses in this video a specialized keyboard for transcription?

Yes. Anyone know how they work? I assume it'd be similar to stenotypes
EDIT: nvm there's an explanation in the video

Ah cool, I kind of want one, if only for novelty value.

bobince Wrote:Gah! Stick with US/UK layouts and use Alt+` as the input mode toggle key.

That is WAY too slow if you type very much Japanese at all. I use keyboard remapping software to remap some dead keys to the 英数 and かな keycodes when tapped by themselves (instead of in a shortcut combo). Since I'm on a mac I use left and right  keys, but you could do the same with the windows keys on a pc probably.

The size of the space bar on a Japanese keyboard is a non-issue in my opinion. The real problem is with punctuation/symbols being in all the wrong places. If you ever want to work in a Japanese office you'll have to learn the layout anyways though.

On Japanese keyboards, ＠ is it's own key as well. I've found I liked this The very unfortunate trade off is that " is Shift+2. Doh.. and ' is Shift+7. Arg...

Anyways, it took like..a week.. to get used to a Japanese keyboard. The smaller space bar is a non-issue for me (though I have smallish hands, I guess).

Having the IME keys on the keyboard is HUGE, though, and I'd hate typing anything in Japanese without them. But as has been said, you can just remap a normal keyboard to these functions if you really want to.

uberstuber Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:Handy thread, I was just wondering whether romaji input is standard in Japan.

Yes.

Quote:Is the keyboard the woman uses in this video a specialized keyboard for transcription?

Yes. Anyone know how they work? I assume it'd be similar to stenotypes
EDIT: nvm there's an explanation in the video

Amazing! I wonder if there is a way to convert a regular keyboard into this type of input. If you haven't watched the video, she says that the left five keys are vowels, and the right consonants. You press both keys together to create a syllable.

I have no idea how she goes about converting the hiragana to the correct kanji so quickly and accurately though. The IME she uses must be amazing.

I find the Dvorak layout I use very convenient for typing Japanese and similar to how you describe the transcriber's keyboard. Consider the middle row especially:

"<>PY FGCRL
AOEUI DHTNS
:QJKX BMWVZ

With exception of the annoying placement of K on the vowel side (being commonly used in Japanese), most of my typing alternates fairly evenly between left and right hands.

I'd compare Dvorak to RTK: most will make fun of it, but once you've used it and get used to it, there's no going back to the old methods.

There isn't anything to make fun of; Dvorak is a much, much better layout than QWERTY. I did some looking into it, but the only problem is people have a tough time going back to the conventional QWERTY (they can do it, but typing is very slow), which is a problem if you use other computers besides your own.

I'd love to switch, but when you factor in the amount of typing you do on other computers and keyboards, your overall speed probably is a bit less than if you just stuck with QWERTY.

I'd love to see a future with Dvorak being the standard, though.

Erm, that is a hoax samesong.

You don't lose your qwerty abilities by using dvorak.
You lose them by not using qwerty anymore.

I, for instance have lost only a little speed in qwerty. I dislike to use it not because of that, but because dvorak is much more comfortable.

I would go over to Dvorak if it was easier. As it is, there are too many problems:

1. Fixing a Dvorak keyboard (and not only Dvorak, Dvorak is only good for English. I need Swedish Dvorak which is much harder to find stuff for).
2. Setting programs etc up for Dvorak (again, Swedish Dvorak).
3. Throwing away all the programs which do not support any Dvorak what so ever.
4. Not being able to use it on other computers.

If there were "smart" keyboards which you simply plugged in and could start typing in Dvorak (the keyboard would translate the signals before sending them, so the computer wouldn't notice any difference) I would be all for it.

I prefer Colemak to Dvorak (If you haven't switched yet)
http://www.colemak.com/

Also, here's a bunch of alternative layouts made for japanese:
http://jisx6004.client.jp/layout.html

Funny, I was just thinking that if I ever wanted an alternate Japanese keyboard, I'd put all the vowels on the right home row and do a voiceless consonants on the left home with their their voiced equivalents directly below. And then what do I find when you post your link? Heh.

That hacker on Bloody Monday has a split keyboard, that'd be cool to combine the two ideas.

samesong makes a good point, I wonder what kind of predictive system they use. eZiText maybe? Yeah, found that through Google.

Just curious - I noticed Dvorak keyboard in katakana is ドヴォラック. Does this mean the English pronunciation is not the same as Dvorak the composer? Or....how is composer Dvorak rendered in katakana?
[edit: looked it up...only the composer is DVOR-zhahk in English. Good thing I don't often talk about alternative keyboards.]

They seem to be distantly related, the 2 dvoraks.

This post is rather long and gets technical at the end, but I added a summary at the bottom.

Tobberoth Wrote:I would go over to Dvorak if it was easier. As it is, there are too many problems:

1. Fixing a Dvorak keyboard (and not only Dvorak, Dvorak is only good for English. I need Swedish Dvorak which is much harder to find stuff for).

Train yourself to stop looking at the keyboard. It's free, work for any OS, all (standard) keyboards and will speed up your typing.

Bonus: Security by obscurity; confuses the hell out of anyone that would try to use your computer since the letters printed on the keyboard (QWERTY) would not match up with the keyboard layout (DVORAK).

Quote:2. Setting programs etc up for Dvorak (again, Swedish Dvorak).

Changing the keyboard layout is done on system level. Your programs won't even notice. The only unsolved problem is that the keyboard short cuts won't be as nice to type (especially undo, cut, copy, and paste) since every program is assuming QWERTY.

Quote:3. Throwing away all the programs which do not support any Dvorak what so ever.

Um, I can only think of programs for training you to type faster with a QWERTY layout and those are useless for training Dvorak.

Quote:4. Not being able to use it on other computers.

True, enabling other keyboard layouts requires changing the system settings and you might not want or be allowed to do that. However, learning Dvorak does not mean you will magically forget QWERTY.

Quote:If there were "smart" keyboards which you simply plugged in and could start typing in Dvorak (the keyboard would translate the signals before sending them, so the computer wouldn't notice any difference) I would be all for it.

There are such keyboards, but they requires software to talk with the computer which means they typically only work for Windows.

There are actually three different types of keyboard layouts: mechanical, functional and visual. A computer needs to be able to handle any combination of mechanical and functional keyboard layouts, while the visual layout is only a help for the user.

Mechanical layout
The size, placement and number of keys on a keyboard. Standard layouts are ISO (worldwide), ANSI (United States), and JIS (Japanese) with 110, 109, respective 112 keys. The most notable differences are:

* Compared with the ANSI keyboards, the ISO and JIS keyboards have shorter ENTER, but the key is also on two rows. The ISO and JIS keyboards have shorter left SHIFT key respective BACKSPACE key.
* ISO keyboards have one extra key by having a shorter ENTER key.
* The ANSI keyboards have a key above the ENTER key. On the ISO keyboards that key is next to the left SHIFT key, while JIS keyboards puts it next to the BACKSPACE key.
* JIS keyboards have keys for conversion and shifting between hiragana and katakana.

Functional layout
Software which translates the mechanical layout for the computer. When a key is pressed, the keyboard sends a keycode which is determined by the mechanical layout. The functional layout maps the keycodes to a symbols such as letters, SHIFT, ESC, etc.. Popular layouts are QWERTY, Dvorak, and Colemak.

Visual layout
The symbols printed on the keys of a keyboard. Different languages have slightly different standard keyboard layouts due to letter frequency:

* The first row of letters on the French keyboard start with AZERTY (U.S keyboard has QWERTY).
* Swedish uses more letters than English (åäö + foreign letters) and therefore have keyboard with different placement of non-alphabetic characters (compared to U.S. keyboards) to make room for them.

tl;dr You use any keyboard with any keyboard layout without effecting the programs you use; the OS hides all those details from the programs. The letters printed on a keyboard is only there as an aid for users that can't type without looking on the keyboard.

From other places I read up on Dvorak it didn't offer that much of an advantage to nerds like me. I practically live on the computer, my WPM is, according to (Get ready for some E-Penis)
http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php

http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php Wrote:Your speed was: 100wpm.

Congratulations! You made no mistakes, practice does make perfect.

I hit about 70WPM when it comes to stuff with numbers. Since I'm a complete nerd and I type insanely fast, I have so far, had no troubles with RSI considering how many games I play on the computer and how often I'm here on IRC, chatting, gaming, studying. I've yet to be convinced that it would be of much help at all to people who are already proficient on QWERTY keyboards.