<story><title>Japanese Typewriters</title><url>https://blog.gatunka.com/2009/09/30/japanese-typewriters/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Normille</author><text>Interesting article. There&amp;#x27;s also one on how typing Japanese is done on modern computers:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.gatunka.com&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;using-a-japanese-ime&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.gatunka.com&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;using-a-japanese-ime&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It all sounds horribly complicated, although it may be one of those procedures that&amp;#x27;s easier to do than to describe.&lt;p&gt;These kind of writing systems really don&amp;#x27;t seem suited to being input via a conventional keyboard, even with software assistance.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if things will change [or have changed] with the advent of touch screens and styluses? [stylii?] which would allow the characters to be written manually, using finger or stylus and then have the software convert this to the appropriate typed character?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mratzloff</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s very straightforward, and although typing speed is not quite the same as English (for me, at least, although I am not a native speaker), it&amp;#x27;s not wildly different.&lt;p&gt;Typing a Japanese word or phrase is just like typing in English, with the exception of selecting the appropriate kanji from a list (no mouse or stylus required). An experienced typist can do this very quickly, on a physical keyboard or on a smartphone.&lt;p&gt;For a word like &amp;quot;Japanese&amp;quot; (language), i.e., Nihongo or 日本語, it&amp;#x27;s actually fewer keystrokes than in English: 5 vs. 8, or 9 if you count the space afterward since Japanese doesn&amp;#x27;t have the same spacing requirements.</text></comment>
<story><title>Japanese Typewriters</title><url>https://blog.gatunka.com/2009/09/30/japanese-typewriters/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Normille</author><text>Interesting article. There&amp;#x27;s also one on how typing Japanese is done on modern computers:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.gatunka.com&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;using-a-japanese-ime&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;blog.gatunka.com&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;using-a-japanese-ime&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It all sounds horribly complicated, although it may be one of those procedures that&amp;#x27;s easier to do than to describe.&lt;p&gt;These kind of writing systems really don&amp;#x27;t seem suited to being input via a conventional keyboard, even with software assistance.&lt;p&gt;I wonder if things will change [or have changed] with the advent of touch screens and styluses? [stylii?] which would allow the characters to be written manually, using finger or stylus and then have the software convert this to the appropriate typed character?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>makeitdouble</author><text>Technically it&amp;#x27;s incredibly complicated, unreliable and crazy it even works at all. The upside is that mobile phones have the same problem space, and Japanese was ready from get go to deal with autocomplete on crammed touchscreens.&lt;p&gt;From a user point of view, you get used to it and it&amp;#x27;s not so bad after a while. The irritating parts (e.g. having to get back to the middle of your sentence to fix a typo otherwise the surrounding characters are also messed up) are offset by the ease to input emoji, pictograms, or basically any unicode char. you remember the name is a godsend ♡</text></comment>