How To Read Japanese Characters Online
 

This fall I just started learning Japanese. I can pretty read things in Japanese pretty well (unless it has some difficult kanji, I don't know very many yet). The thing that frustrates me is when I go online I see this... (which I just quickly copied) 風林火山. To me it reads square, square, square, square. Do I need to install something to my computer so it can translate it and then I can read it. Or when I go into the higher level course of learning Japanese I'll be able to read it, one day?

enable asian characters on your compooper.

Yep, when you get good enough you will see hidden characters inside the squares.

I'm seeing something... I can't quite make it out... it says... "f'in otaku! and a cubs fan at that!"

hater .

Thank you Uriko. And I'm not really an otaku. I'm learning the language to maybe move to Japan one day and I'm going into the medical field so knowing another language would be a major plus.

Spot on, princess. No love for the infidels ;)

yup yup.

to enable the language so you can view the characters, it's all in the control panel of your computer.

i found theirs no easy way to translate it you just have to understand the sounds before you can understand the meaning to it. one thing you can do is go onto About.com and search for "learning Kanji" and theirs alot of lessons from elementary to advance lessons up. or you can buy Flash cards. i bought Japanese in a flash. they have flash cards that show you how to use it in a word and sentence. when your learning kanji dont just write it down. practice writing it over and over again till you can identify it. also to help you memorize it, stick tissue in your ears and say the name of the kanji out loud. the sound will reverberate inside your head helping you to remember the sound of it.

BUT if you want to translate certain kanji go here

Online Translator: English-Japanese - en/ja

they translate the kanji into english.