Rocket Japanese Community

How can foreigners write in Kanji on their computer?

This is just so clever...
download whatever version is suitable to your computer system..
easy as...

Are you talking Mac or Windows. It can be done on either, but I know Windows and it's quite easy. Somewhere around here I have my instructions on using the Japanese IME on Windows system. If that's what you're interested in I'll find it and try to get you a copy.

Just a quick little test.

私は日本語をべんきょうします。

Not the best. The よ should be distinctly smaller and lower than the rest of the characters.

On a Mac, you can type Romaji and have the Mac help select Kanji. (Using Pinyin for Traditional Chinese characters works the same way on Macs.) Open "TextEdit" (in the Applications folder). Then setup the Mac as follows:

Open System Preferences, select International, click "Input Menu" and in the items there, click the box to select a Japanese input method - on Mac OS 10.4 Tiger this would be "Kotoeri." Also click the box that says "Show input menu in menu bar."

You will now have a US flag on your menu bar at the top right of the screen. By clicking it you can switch the input menu to characters of a different language, including Japanese. In this case, click the flag and select "Hiragana."

In your Text Edit document, type the Romaji and press the space bar. If the kanji is not correct, press the space bar. You will then see different kanji choices. (Pressing the space bar is a way to select the appropriate kanji.)

Traditional Chinese is also available via the same method; you would check the boxes for "Traditional Chinese" in addition to Kotoeri. Chinese (or Japanese) characters then become available for use in email as well as TextEdit. You can use Pinyin to give you the characters.

The way you'd do this is, install the japanese fonts on your computer, or atleast do so you can use them.

This video shows how to do that:'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfxxQjF5 ... onse_watch

After that, you'll just type the name of the kanji... Going to the little language bar, picking "JP" and then writing.. example.. ryu, and then press enter, and it comes up with the correct kanji

- Rom.

pdchapin wrote:Just a quick little test.

私は日本語をべんきょうします。

Not the best. The よ should be distinctly smaller and lower than the rest of the characters.

It is distinctly smaller IMO... but I'm not here to argue so OK!