Well, I had to buy a new computer recently and got me a Vaio, which I’m quite happy with at the moment. I find that in addition to English I need to be typing stuff in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Now, I already know how to get the computer to type in English (thought I’d beat y’all to that joke), Korean, and Vietnamese. The thing has Windows XP and I activated the ZH (Hong Kong S.A.R.) and JP (Japanese) languages.
My question is: How do I get it to actually type Chinese & Japanese? What is the keyboard command? For Korean, it’s simple: select KO from the language bar and hit the right-hand-side ALT key to toggle between the English and Korean alphabets.
I assume this is a Korean-bought computer, so the Korean input is already installed, but not the others?
Go to the Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages tab. Everything you need should be in there. The Details button will let you add languages into the Language Bar. (This is from checking my WinXP Pro computer, might var a little on a Home version.)
Windows XP actually has great built-in support for multiple languages.
Since Chinese and Japanese don’t have “alphabets”, per se, the entry is a bit different from other languages.
Basically, you need to use an Input Method Editor (IME) to type (alphabetic) characters into. Through one system or another, the IME transforms these into (Japanese and Chinese) characters that go into the input field that you’re typing into.
I’ll use Chinese for an example, since that’s what I’m familiar with. When I want to enter a Chinese character, I use the language bar (at the bottom of the screen) to select “Chinese input”. I then start typing the Pinyin for the character I want (“Pinyin” is a phonetic representation of the sound of the character).
As I type, a line pops up on the screen that shows a set of possible Chinese characters for the Pinyin that I’ve typed so far (with a number next to each choice.) The more Pinyin that I type, the more it narrows down the possible choices - when I see the one that I want, I pick the character by typing the number.
There are several different methods just for entering Chinese characters (based on stroke order, etc). And Japanese would have their own IME method(s). But that’s the basic idea.
As charizard said, the IME will let you enter Japanese characters. With Japanese and Microsoft’s IME, you have to choose the input mode (hiragana, full or half-width katakana or Romaji). In hiragana and katakana modes, you just type the Romanized version of the Japanese words you want, hitting space bar after each character representation (although that’s often not necessary, sometimes it is). Hitting the space bar a second time will popup a list of alternates for the Romanized syllable. It’s pretty functional even without a Japanese keyboard.
It’s a US computer. As I’m retired from the US Navy, I have access to the American PX and bought my Vaio at Camp Walker.
I have the Japanese thing going on now. What I had to do was select “Show Language Bar” from the minimized language bar menu. I have to do the “type romaji and it displays kana” method. What I want is to type directly in kana with the Japanese keyboard layout. As mentioned above, I can enter Korean with the Hangeul keyboard layout on this computer.
I’ll give that a shot with the Chinese input. Any chance of a Bopomofo entry selection?
Further note: I selected Hong Kong Chinese, not mainland Chinese for the simple reason that the e-mail etc. I’ll be sending are for someone who is in Hong Kong.
Okay, so what you want is to have た show up when you hit the Q key? You can turn that on by going Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Languages tab and click on the Text services and input languages Details box. Click on Microsoft IME Standard under Japanese Keyboard and hit Properties. There’s a ローマ字入力/かな入力 option there that you can change. Hopefully that came out clear enough.
I’m surprised, though… I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone, gaijin or Japanese, who didn’t type in romanization.