If you’ve ever assumed the Japanese keyboard must have hundreds of small buttons because of the thousands of characters and symbols and the varied alphabet, you wouldn’t be alone.
This is not the situation, and Japanese people may rest easy. I’ll be discussing the ingenious ways in which Japanese keyboards facilitate effective writing in both Japanese and English.
Here, I’ll describe the layout of a Japanese keyboard and how to type Japanese characters on any computer running Mac OS X or Windows.
Japanese Writing Systems
There are two primary Japanese writing systems, the syllabic (kana) and logographic (kanji) systems, as I discussed in my prior piece on the difficulty of learning Japanese.
Kana
The term “syllabic” refers to a writing system in which each sign stands for a separate sound or syllable. Hiragana and Katakana are the two different kinds of phonetic syllabaries that are used in Japanese. These two alphabets are sometimes referred to as kana or kanamoji when they are used together.
Because Japanese borrows so many words from other languages, the language actually uses two distinct kana syllabaries. These two kana syllabaries are used to write the same words in Japanese.
Katakana is utilized for writing foreign words as well as terms that have been borrowed from other languages and assimilated into the Japanese language. Hiragana, on the other hand, is utilized for writing Japanese words. The reader may determine whether or not the word is a foreign one based on the difference between the two different sorts of symbols, which serves as a clue.
Each kana syllabary contains a total of 46 syllables, which are also referred to as characters. If you compare this to the number of characters in the English alphabet, which is just 26, you would think this is a lot, but when you look at kanji, you’ll see that this is nothing in comparison.
Kanji
The logographic kanji, the other Japanese script, is predicated on each sign having a specific meaning rather than conveying a sound or phrase. Because of this, each sign stands in for a different word and has its own meaning, and the symbols themselves may be joined to form new words.
The Chinese language and Japanese both use the alphabet known as kanji. Kanji are inappropriate for typing since there are over tens of thousands of characters and it is difficult to incorporate every sign on a keyboard.
While the Chinese and Japanese alphabets are similar, Kanji cannot be used exclusively when writing in Japanese. Because of this, kana is frequently combined with it.
While knowing both the kana and kanji alphabets will greatly increase your reading speed, the layout of a standard keyboard makes typing either alphabet inefficient. Now we can discuss a well-liked method of Japanese typing.
Romaji
The two Japanese writing systems are kanji and kana, although romaji, which isn’t a Japanese alphabet but is widely used in Japan, is also a possibility.
A literal translation of romaji would be “Roman letters.” Typing in romaji, which is shorthand for “writing the pronunciation of kana syllables using the English alphabet,” is a common way to input Japanese text.
You may have heard of Romaji if you’re studying Japanese; it’s a common way for novices to get a foothold in the language. Once you have a firm grasp of Japanese grammar and vocabulary, however, you should make the transition from romaji to reading the original Japanese characters.
Numerous romaji systems exist, including Hepburn, Nihon-Shiki, and Kunrei-Shiki. Learners of Japanese don’t have to concern themselves with them, however, because they are an advanced issue and it is best to begin using kana and kanji as soon as possible.
Types of Japanese Keyboard
The Romaji JIS layout seen in the image above is one of the most common types of keyboards used in Japan. However, there are other types of keyboards with other layouts, some of which look far cooler if you’re a fan of unusual-looking electronics like I am.
Nicola Layout
The Nicola layout, which was developed in the 1970s and is also known as the “thumb-shift layout,” immediately gained popularity after its introduction and continues to have a significant number of users even now. Because the layout is focused on kana, rather than romaji, it is simple to type directly in kana instead of romaji.
The thumb shift button on the keyboard is used to transition between the lowercase and uppercase characters that are included within each key.
TRON Layout
The TRON layout is a specialized keyboard layout created specifically for the purpose of making input of kana more efficient. It also happens to be one of the most intriguing-looking keyboard layouts currently available.
This pattern was developed in the 1980s and features two shift buttons on the left and right sides. These buttons allow the user to quickly swap between the various hiragana. It was developed to allow for the entry of Japanese characters with the fewest number of button pushes possible.
M-System Layout
In the 1980s, a romaji-based keyboard layout was developed and implemented. The placement of the English letters on the keyboard is optimized for typing Kana, however, the keys themselves do not include any symbols for the Kana script. Although there are fewer people who use this layout, it is still an effective way to type kana characters.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a Japanese keyboard does not resemble a typical Western keyboard at all in its physical appearance. Its layout is based on the QWERTY system, but it has a few extra keys that are used to type in Japanese. This allows it to be used to type in that language. The amount of keys varies from keyboard to keyboard, and some keyboards may even feature dedicated keys for accessing various Japanese input methods. In the end, the Japanese keyboard is an excellent tool for individuals who are interested in communicating in the Japanese language or who just wish to browse websites written in Japanese.
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