So I wanted to setup Japanese keyboard on my macOS this morning and got quite confused and couldn’t make it work as desired (typing “n” and “i” to get に was rather producing みに, ugh!)
Only after a bit of searching I found this thread:
and wo and behold - yes, I added “Kana” keyboard instead of “Romaji”. After switching to “Romaji” it works as epxected.
But it got me thinking - how often this layout is used by students/people without actual Japanese keyboard? Does it make sense to try to master such layout?
More often than it’s used by native Japanese speakers. It’s almost never used in Japan (even though they’ve got keyboards with the kana printed on them) - most of them use romaji entry.
The chief exception is people generally use the kana flick keyboard on their phones.
Oh,I was somewhat assuming that romaji input would be the most popular (feela more convenient) but you surprised me that even en Japan It’s not that popular.
Ah, I must have been unclear: romaji input is what’s typically used in Japan. The (mild) joke I was making is that it’s Japanese learners, believing kana input is what’s used in Japan and wanting to use it themselves for practice, who are the primary users of kana input.
Elementary 3rd graders are taught romaji and it goes hand in hand with typing. They technically can use the kana layout on keyboards, but with all the ctrl + z or keyboard shortcuts, it’s just better to learn the alphabet anyways. Belthazar has it right saying the only time they really use the kana layout is on the kana flick phone typing.
Although I will say I sometimes see students who are not good at romaji use their tablet screen keyboard where it has the kana flick typing, or a huge mess of all of the kana possible kind of like a karaoke keyboard.
tldr: they only use the kana keyboard in very very small circumstances. If you want to try and learn it, go ahead, but Japanese people just type using the QWERTY keyboard with romaji input
