Job Discussion Forums

[Tim Trowbridge]

Hello,
My girlfriend is Japanese and currently resides in the USA. She wants to be able to type in Japanese in a word processor. We know that we can download and install Microsoft Input Method Editor (IME) and have words typed in romaji show up in Japanese characters. However, she would prefer using a Japanese keyboard and typing Japanese characters directly into the word processor. What are our best options? Does anyone know if we can buy a Japanese laptop in the USA? We did notice that we can buy a Japanese keyboard on eBay, but we're not sure how that interacts with a non-Japanese laptop. Would we need a special word processor installed on our non-Japanese laptop in order to use the Japanese keyboard? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Bread]

You would install support for the foreign keyboard in the same place as you install the IME. I'm currently living in Japan with a Korean laptop and typing in Japanese all the time. The IME is really all you need and it's the way that Japanese people type, too. There IS a way to type one character for each keystroke, but I've never seen anyone use it. If you'll be typing in English as well, I wouldn't even want a Japanese keyboard with its tiny spacebar.

edit: Forgot that you said your girlfriend was Japanese. In that case, you can just add it as a foreign keyboard in the same menu that the IME is in. You'll need to toggle the keyboard when you swap them, unless there's some kind of program to auto-detect them.