Yeah but Japanese people who speak it as a first language haven’t had romaji be their first introduction to the language whereas a lot of Japanese learners have.
That’s why I say move away from romaji as much as possible including input. That way you’re not thinking about the romaji you’re thinking about the kana.
If that’s not a problem for people then that’s great but if you’re struggling with inputting kana properly it might be best to avoid romaji at all costs.
No, I would 100% be thinking “where on earth did は get to on this ridiculous keyboard?” I shouldn’t ever be focussing on what I’m typing, only on what I’m intending to say.
Even when I type in English, I’m not thinking about the letters that I type, but rather the words.
I agree that not using romaji could help people who struggle with kana, but, serious question: do people struggle with kana? I’ve never heard of anyone except for beginners like op to have trouble distinguishing things like kyuu and kiyuu; it’s pretty clear once you get down the very basics of hiragana. For beginners, the difficulty of having to learn a new keyboard layout seems unnecessary compared to just learning the correct kana. (basically I agree with @prouleau lol)
Yeah, I totally agree that the kana keyboard can be useful for a number of reasons! Personally I use it on my phone because u, i, and o are so close together I constantly make typos with QWERTY
Yeah, when I’m typing, I’m not thinking ‘wa’, I’m thinking ‘は’.
Although not the greatest example since I could also be typing ‘ha’ and thinking ‘は’. lol
It comes up fairly regularly. I see a few a month I’d guess.
I would agree. Not knowing the difference between にゅ and にゆ is not knowing the kana. Not knowing how to type づ and ぢ is not knowing the IME system. Neither are things WK is for, although they do have good resources to get you going.
I can see where you are coming from, but I’m not sure I feel the same. Tofugu’s article on hiragana can teach you hiragana in one or two days. But knowing that にゅ and にゆ exist doesn’t mean you can tell which is which. It took me a good two/three weeks of consistently seeing kana before I could tell if something was small or large, unless is was positioned close to its counterpart.
Don’t forget that kanji don’t have audio files on WK, so you can’t hear the difference, you have to rely entirely on the visual clue. Tofugu’s article doesn’t tell you to go practice kana for 3 weeks, they tell you to start learning kanji - so this will continue to occur for a lot of level 1’s. Many more than post here on the forum, because a good number of them will find the ‘how to type’ article themselves.
I wonder how many level 1’s throw in the towel because they simply can’t get anything to be accepted and it frustrates them to a point where they leave the site.
edit: I just realized Tofugu can easily solve this without implementing a new feature. There are 5 kanji on level 1 that use small kana 上 入 力 十 女 . Simply adding a link to their own article on how to type small kana to the five reading descriptions would do it.
I’m just not sure how much of a difference it makes and whether the WK team feel the need to address it. It’s been the same for years now, so I don’t see it changing anytime soon.