Using japanese keyboard on phone

Japanese Language
21

I know how to use the kana keyboard, I learned it years ago but I’ve probably gotten very rusty since then. I had to stop using it because Gboard sucks so much. :smiley:

22

If you use android Google basically owns your soul anyway so what harm is one more app? :wink:

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23

I’ve started to use simeji. All of the additional stuff of a typical Japanese keyboard (more special characters, kaomoji) + a normal querty layout for English text.

24

Simeji only allows 2 languages at a time, right? :frowning:

Right now, I use the Samsung keyboard. I would love to change to a kana keyboard that allows background pics AND 2+ languages…

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25

I have an iPhone personally. I use Gboard since it somewhat works without enabling full access. But it still basically sucks. It doesn’t learn anything I type, so most Japanese-related stuff I still have to tap manually and it often tries to autocorrect it to something else.

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26

Mmmh… I guess ^^
Never really checked until just now :smile:

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27

Yeah, I have the impression that it only allows JP/EN :frowning:

28

I use the kana flick keyboard as well. Initially I used the romaji input on my phone, but once I learned how to use the kana keyboard and got used to using it, I’ve never gone back. There is definitely a learning curve (as you’ve already noticed). That goes away with practice.

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29

I fought with Gboard for several weeks just to get that kana keyboard. But I decided that Google doesn’t deserve to have their keyboard installed on my phone. I’ve never seen such a junk prediction, and there’s not many features compared to other, more fleshed out keyboards.

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30

Come over to the SwiftKey side :wink:

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31

Any keyboard feels awfully clunky compared to SwiftKey.

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32

My. Life. Has. Been. Changed.


CC: @Krispy

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33

Damn I didn’t expect so many answers so quickly, gotta love this forum once again :smiley:

@jprspereira Exactly! I noticed that even in JDrama I see that keyboard.

@Kumirei I like how the characters are displayed (in grey)

Gotta learn to use it with hello talk I guess :disappointed_relieved:

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34

No Japanese support on iOS, so :man_shrugging:t2:

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35

I am also on iOS :confused:

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36

I got good after spending too much time playing Miku Flick.

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37

All the Japanese natives I know in Japan (a handful, but still) use the kana keyboard, not romaji. I was super-slow with it at first, but now I love it and wish there was a similar keyboard for the roman alphabet. It too would be slow at first, but fast once you learned it. I mean, think of learning to type on a qwerty keyboard - the keys are not arranged in any logical order*, you just have to learn it - but you get fast.

The thing that still annoys me with the kana is forgetting to select the suggested word at the right time. It seems to then select half-words or weird combinations of half-words to show kanji suggestions for and I haven’t figured out a quick way to deselect and correct it other than delete and rewrite the whole section.

So piggyback question - when should you stop and select the suggestion, every word? After each particle (works most of the time for me)?

  • ok, but not an intuitive logical order that a learner can sight-read easily.
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38

…

Ahh, the memories.

39

Ha, well, I’m old enough to remember that, but it’s not the same. Swiping is much faster than tap-tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-oh crap missed it-tap-tap-tap-tap… :smile:

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40

I’ve been using it for over 2 years and regularly use it with Line etc. That being said, I’m still not very fast. I often make the mistake of sliding the wrong direction for い vs え sounds, and I’m also slow at inputting any non-hiragana symbols like brackets. But I can input Japanese using it faster than I can use qwerty.

With qwerty you need to press two keys for most hiragana characters, whereas with the Japanese keyboard you just need one swipe of your thumb. All the keys are close to your thumb and you don’t need a high degree of accuracy like you do with qwerty (because the qwerty keys are so small). Deleting characters is also twice as fast.

If you practise it enough you’ll get faster than you are at qwerty. But to get that good you need to use it a lot. Even my 2 years of casual usage isn’t anywhere near enough to make input as natural as qwerty feels, but it is better for inputting Japanese. Also it feels cool.

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