as a user from Germany I have a very specific problem: Our y and z keys are switched and I recently discovered that muscle memory can be tricky as I completely mess up my writing when I use the japanese keyboard. This is because the daily learning is done on the german layout (romaji getting converted into hiragana).
Is there a script out there to switch the keys on wanikani so I don’t have to download the english layout (and ruining my quick switching from german to japanese layout with “win+space”)?
Oh interesting. I’m not good at these kinds of things, but I’d be interested to know if there is too. I type on two different keyboards (one is the standard qwerty) so it’d be cool if I could type Japanese with either one.
If you have Japanese keyboard, it’s better not to use a script that switches y and z only for WK because when you actually have to type Japanese with Japanese keyboard outside of WK, you’ll have to adjust anyway.
So i just went into my Region and Language settings, selected the Japanese Microsoft IME, and hit properties, editing, and by Key Template, I hit “Advanced”, then go to the “Romaji-Kana conversion” and it looks like you can change the settings?
It’d be a lot of work but I think you can just change it that way?
EDIT: just realized it won’t fix your WK input…whoops! and you’ll have trouble if you switch computers… but I’ll leave my comment here anyway =P
Actually, I confused myself now, and I’m not sure what the problem is. You don’t need to use an IME when typing into WK, so you can technically use any keyboard you want, and you would still type english like you normally would? I use my (non-qwerty) keyboard for pretty much everything, including WK, i just get (momentarily) messed up when I switch to the Japanese IME since it uses the qwerty keyboard…
I want to use my german keyboard so I dont have to switch the (not hardware) keyboard to it, if I need to type in “english” (I type german words after I inserted them as synonym)
Like @rmizuno mentioned, WaniKani auto converts your input into hiragana, so one can just the familiar QWERTZ layout.
As for the other problem:
E.g. AutoHotkey (for Win only) allows you to write a simple makro, which e.g. changes every typed Z to Y and so on.
Something like this (untested!)
#Hotstring c ? *
::z::y
::y::z
::Z::Y
::Y::Z
…I actually use an AHK script for typing the German Umlaute, as I am German but my primary layout is US-English.
SharpKeys should be another option to globally change key input via the registry.
I know about and use the auto convert. But if I want to write a text in japanese my muscle memory kicks in, so きょう will get ｋぞう until I realize this and type it correctly. It would be great if I can force the auto convert from wanikani to always use qwerty and not qwertz (for convenience)
Edit, after reading your post multiple times, I think I finally got what your problem is.
Maybe it is a Win vs Mac problem because on my Mac I type with my German keyboard just fine on WaniKani. I can either type in hiragana (but I never do because why would I switch if I don’t have to) or just let WaniKani convert what I type and it works fine since in both cases I would use the German layout, type “yu” and it would convert it to ”ゆ”.
Isn’t the problem rather your Japanese keyboard layout on Windows? Shouldn’t it be possible to set it up to work correctly in combination with your German layout? Having to type with a qwerty layout only when typing Japanese sounds… painful. (edit but apparently that is what it is. Unless you want to tweak the registry a bit, that is what I would try if I was in that situation but not sure if that is still possible with more recent versions of Windows)
And since I’m already here I’m going to tell you how I solved the whole thing: I use the Anki mode script. I find it too time consuming to add German synonyms and I often get the English terms wrong because I’m just not a native speaker and I often type an answer that is correct in theory (in my head… ) but just complete nonsense in English. Using the Anki mode is faster, I don’t have to bother with typing errors and I can trust myself to not cheat (too much… ) so I’m really happy about it. Just mentioning it in case you are not aware that this script exists.