Keyboards

Using Japanese keyboards is really messing with my punctuation.

At work, I use Japanese keyboards; the letters are all in the same location, but some of the symbols are different. Apostrophes are now on the '7' key, the apostrophe is a colon :, the @ symbol is next to the P, etc.

At home, I have a MacBook I bought in Japan. On the keyboard are printed the Japanese keyboard symbols. However, I've formatted my keyboard so that it uses the standard English format. If someone who couldn't touch type symbols tried to use my computer, they'd be in for a lot of confusion. Pressing the " key gives you a @, pressing ( gives you a *, pressing ) gives you a (, and so on.

Anyway, I can usually make the mental adjustment, and hit different keys according to where I'm using a computer. But sometimes if I've been using the work computers too much, I come home and keep screwing up.

***

While on the subject of keyboards, I thought I'd explain how Japanese people can type Japanese. As you may know, the Japanese written language consists of three character sets - hiragana and katakana (which are phonetic - ka, ke, ki, ko, ku, etc), and kanji (the Chinese characters, of which there are thousands, and most kanji have several potential pronunciations, depending on what word they are in).

(You'll need to have a computer which enables Japanese characters, to see the next part properly.)

However, typing in Japanese is actually quite simple. You write using English characters, and the computer converts them as you type.

For example, let's say I want to say 'Nihongo o benkyou shite imasu' (I am studying Japanese).

I type 'ni', and after I finish writing the 'i', the text changes to the Japanese hiragana character: に
Now, I'm still writing the same word, so I just continue typing. ho becomes ほ, n becomes ん, go becomes ご。
にほんご (nihongo)
Now I have finished this word and I want it to translate it into kanji. So I press space.
日本語 (nihongo)
Space doesn't create a space; it changes the characters. If the computer has chosen the wrong kanji, you can press space again and it will give you a list of potential kanji for those syllables. This is a boon for studying Japanese, if you don't know how to write something in kanji.

Anyway, 日本語 is the correct kanji, so I hit 'enter'. Enter confirms a word and lets you enter another word. (If I hit enter a second time, I can go to a new line.)

So I continue typing my sentence, 'Nihongo o benkyou shite imasu'. I type 'o', enter, be n kyo u, space (changes to kanji), enter, shi te i ma su, enter.

日本語を勉強しています。

It's very cool, and it makes me feel like I can write kanji. ^_^ Actually, though, this kind of technology (and it's a similar process on mobile phones) has led to a lot of younger people being less skilled at actually writing kanji. It's so easy to get the computer to write it for you...

If you are typing a word that *doesn't* have kanji, but is a common foreign or 'loan' word, the computer will translate it into katakana. For example, if I write こーひ and press space, it will change to コーヒ (ko-hi, which is 'coffee').

If you do write something that isn't a legitimate Japanese syllable (for example, a random consonant not followed by a vowel), the computer will not translate it correctly. For example, Starbucks may come out as Sたrぶcks. (ta and bu are legitimate characters). For foreign words, you can press a key on your keyboard to leave them as English characters, or convert them into katakana.

It's nice having a proper Japanese keyboard, because I can immediately switch to Japanese mode at the press of a button. ^_^