How do you send messages in Japanese fonts?
 

I must be really stupid but I simply do not know how to enable Japanese fonts plus how does someone manage to use Kanji as well as Katakana and hiragana?

when trying to write a message in Nihongo how does one go about it?

I know there have been complaints about using romaji-- I can understand that--but as I do not know how to write messages with the japanese language I am still in limbo.


Can anyone please advise me.

I would try harder if I could find a way to write in nihongo.


If someone could demonstrate in romaji and then also put the correct print in japanese font that could help me because I could copy it and try to do it myself.

thanks in advance.

I am not sure what type of windows you are using, but basically (if it not win7) you will need to install eastern alphabets from the windows CD. You will find language options under STAR menu >>> control panel >> Language options.

After the install, you will have a language bar at the bottom part of you screen. You can then change between fonts. While in Japanese font mode, you type phoneticall using english keyboard (for ex. ame for 雨 (rain) and use space bar to select either one of the syllabaries (kanas) or kanji, then press enter for input.

also look here:

Japanese Font

for those using a iMac go to "Open language and text" . Type japanese ... it should give you the choices to use hiragana, katakana , romaji,ainu,full-width romaji,half-width katakana. although i am a beginner and still don't know and understand what use are the last two for.

Half-width kana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Japanese input methods - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In practice: different width is used for input for various online forms.

It is quite simple really. Say you want to type the hiragana か. Just type in "k" and "a", and the program you are using will automatically change your romaji input into hiragana. Now say you want to write Kanji.. take kami かみ for example. once you have typed かみ it will be underlined, for my computer I simply press the space bar, and a list of possible kanji for that reading will pop up and I can scroll through them by continuing to press the space bar. It may sound troublesome, but with practice it is really no big deal.

If you're using a Mac, it's stupid easy. Just add "Japanese" to your computer language use, and all it is is a matter of hitting the apple key and spacebar to flip seamlessly through hiragana, katakana, and english. Cycle to the writing you want, and away you go.

I don't have windows seven or a MAC.

I have XP.

thanks for your input. I shall have to have a go and see what happens.

Adding onto Dosgbody's question . . .

I have the same issue, except using Vista rather than XP or 7, but I'm sure I have Japanese fonts installed . . . I can view them fine, I can even copy/paste them to send them, but I have no idea how to actually type them. If I'm able to view them then I must have them installed, right? So how does one type in Japanese fonts in that case?

:confused:

In control panel, there should be an option to configure keyboard. You need to enable the IME for Japanese. I am on a mac right now, so I won't be able to give you the instructions, as soon as I get on a Windows PC (maybe tonight) I will send step by step instrucitons

Installing East Asian Language Support under Windows XP

Writing Japanese on the Windows Platform

https://www.msu.edu/~bellbri2/ime.html

Installing and Typing Japanese on Vista / Windows 7

Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Office XP Tool: Global IME (Japanese)

best,

.............john