# Microsoft IME?
**URL:** https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490
**Category:** Kanji
**Created:** [January 20, 2020, 11:33am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490 "2020-01-20T11:33:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@kekelele](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kekelele)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:33am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/1 "2020-01-20T11:33:46Z")
Hi all, I am using Microsoft’s Japanese IME in Windows to type Japanese. I am new to this and I am finding that the hiragana conversion to kanji is giving really bad suggestions, am I doing something wrong?
For example if I type こう and then hit space for suggestions, 口 does not appear until the 38th suggestion in the list! I realize there are many meanings for こう but 口 is a very basic kanji, surely this can’t be ordering by frequency!
How “intelligent” is the Microsoft IME and will it get better with use? Is it good at figuring out words from sentence context or are you constantly struggling to pick the right kanji?
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@OmukaiAndi](https://community.wanikani.com/u/OmukaiAndi)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:36am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/2 "2020-01-20T11:36:48Z")
i got google ime, been pretty happy with it for going on a decade now.
> **[Google 日本語入力](https://www.google.co.jp/ime/)**
>
> 思いどおりの日本語入力。Google 日本語入力は、変換の煩わしさを感じさせない思いどおりの日本語入力を提供します。
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### Author:  [@kekelele](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kekelele)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:37am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/3 "2020-01-20T11:37:54Z")
Oh, very cool, this is not just a browser plugin by installs in Windows?
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### Author:  [@morteASD](https://community.wanikani.com/u/morteASD)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:37am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/4 "2020-01-20T11:37:58Z")
くち is pretty common but I don’t really see it with compound kanji that often, so 38th sounds pretty okay to me.
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### Author:  [@morteASD](https://community.wanikani.com/u/morteASD)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:38am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/5 "2020-01-20T11:38:46Z")
Noo, Google evil, don’t use their products 😃 Is there any functional difference? I’m pretty happy with the Microsoft IME but most of the time I’m on Linux and IBUS anthy.
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### Author:  [@OmukaiAndi](https://community.wanikani.com/u/OmukaiAndi)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:38am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/6 "2020-01-20T11:38:53Z")
nope, it’s a complete ime.
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### Author:  [@OmukaiAndi](https://community.wanikani.com/u/OmukaiAndi)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:39am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/7 "2020-01-20T11:39:13Z")
there’s not much good competition 😉
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### Author:  [@kekelele](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kekelele)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:40am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/8 "2020-01-20T11:40:04Z")
Thanks! Any idea if the Google IME sends everything you type back to Google? I’d love to try something different but I know Google is pretty bad for privacy. 🙂
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### Author:  [@morteASD](https://community.wanikani.com/u/morteASD)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:41am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/9 "2020-01-20T11:41:56Z")
It’s Google, of course it does. Same policy as with all their other tools. Maybe not exactly what you type but meta- and usagedata definitely. They have a pretty extensive privacy policy in which they explain it all.
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### Author:  [@kekelele](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kekelele)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:43am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/10 "2020-01-20T11:43:03Z")
Ok well thanks both for the suggestions and info. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Kazzeon](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Kazzeon)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:43am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/11 "2020-01-20T11:43:05Z")
You can usually opt-out of sending Google information. 👀
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### Author:  [@Belthazar](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Belthazar)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:43am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/12 "2020-01-20T11:43:11Z")
> [@kekelele](#):
>
> For example if I type こう and then hit space for suggestions, 口 does not appear until the 38th suggestion in the list! I realize there are many meanings for こう but 口 is a very basic kanji, surely this can’t be ordering by frequency!
I feel like you’re going to have this issue with any IME, simply because こう is one of the most common on’yomi for kanji.
If you want to type 口 on its own, write くち
If you want to type 口 as part of a larger word, type that whole word in one go. For example じんこう = 人口.
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### Author:  [@morteASD](https://community.wanikani.com/u/morteASD)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:45am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/13 "2020-01-20T11:45:06Z")
Some, but not really.
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### Author:  [@Leebo](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Leebo)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:46am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/14 "2020-01-20T11:46:09Z")
Yeah, if all you want is 口, then こう will always be an inefficient way to type it.
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### Author:  [@kekelele](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kekelele)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:46am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/15 "2020-01-20T11:46:53Z")
Thanks. As a beginner it’s pretty hard to know which reading(s) to use, WaniKani doesn’t really tell me which to use if I just want to use the word “on its own”, it just gives me all the possible readings. I suppose I’ll figure this out with time. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Kazzeon](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Kazzeon)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:47am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/16 "2020-01-20T11:47:39Z")
‾\_(ツ)\_/‾
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### Author:  [@Belthazar](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Belthazar)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:49am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/17 "2020-01-20T11:49:18Z")
When you reach the [vocabulary card](https://www.wanikani.com/vocabulary/%E5%8F%A3) for the term, that’s the reading you’ll use when you see the kanji in real life.
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### Author:  [@kekelele](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kekelele)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 11:50am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/18 "2020-01-20T11:50:10Z")
Oh thank you! That makes sense!
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### Author:  [@OmukaiAndi](https://community.wanikani.com/u/OmukaiAndi)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 12:09pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/19 "2020-01-20T12:09:34Z")
That’s an opt-out thing, one of the first things to uncheck.
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### Author:  [@ShakeYourRump](https://community.wanikani.com/u/ShakeYourRump)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2020, 9:02pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490/20 "2020-03-01T21:02:35Z")
I also use the Microsoft IME. If it’s a common reading, I press spacebar to bring up the kanji list, then click the little arrow with the mouse to show the entire list at once.
> [@kekelele](#):
>
> As a beginner it’s pretty hard to know which reading(s) to use, WaniKani doesn’t really tell me which to use if I just want to use the word “on its own”, it just gives me all the possible readings.
Actually, Wanikani does explain this during lessons when relevant kanji/vocabulary is being learned.
As a rule of thumb: If its a single kanji, and you want to name the kanji itself, you use on-yomi. If its a single kanji, but is a word, use kun-yomi.
The kanji 口 is read as こう. (on-yomi)
The word 口 is read as くち. (kun-yomi)
I find that in my lessons, I rarely need to refer to a kanji by name. As a beginner, if you are reading and come across a stand-alone kanji, it’s kun-yomi.
[Next page](https://community.wanikani.com/t/microsoft-ime/41490.md?page=2)