In Japan & need info about multilingual OS X pronto

[sushiman]

I was hoping and praying that my POS Fujitsu would hold out until Leopard was released but the spiteful , recalcitrant SOB died on me yesterday morning so I've got to buy a new computer NOW .

As I said in the title , I am in Japan , and both my Japanese wife and I will be using the new iMAc with yours truly being the main user . I read this on the Japanese site :


Your Mac can be ordered with an English language (U.S.) style keyboard, or Japanese - the choice is yours. The Mac OS X operating system supplied with your Mac is multilingual so can be set up in English and a large range of international languages.

Does this mean that the computer can be operated both in English and Japanese ? I will be new to Mac and , although my command of Japanese isn't too shoddy , I surely don't want to master the learning curve in it ! My wife , of course , would much prefer to operate the computer in her native language as well .

Could someone please explain how this multilingual operating system works ?

Thanks in advance .

 

[suneohair]

As far as I know there is a hotkey that lets you switch between japanese and english... it might say かな／カナ. That should switch input types.

Since the OS should be natively Japanese (since that is where you bought it) you shouldn't have to do much else. It should be able to take the input from the keys.

It should have asked what kind of keyboard you had during setup too. So it should know what you are using.

Hope that helps.

Does the new keyboard even have the kana on the keyboard itself? The images on apple.com/jp do not show it.

If this doesn't work, you might have to go in and set it up manually. System Preference --> International --> Input menu, enable the kotoeri. Pay attention to the default hot key, by default i think it conflicts with spotlight. I change the s to an l on mine. If you do have the quick かな key though, it doesn't really matter for you.

 

[sushiman]

As far as I know there is a hotkey that lets you switch between japanese and english... it might say かな／カナ. That should switch input types.

Since the OS should be natively Japanese (since that is where you bought it) you shouldn't have to do much else. It should be able to take the input from the keys.

It should have asked what kind of keyboard you had during setup too. So it should know what you are using.

Hope that helps.

Does the new keyboard even have the kana on the keyboard itself? The images on apple.com/jp do not show it.

If this doesn't work, you might have to go in and set it up manually. System Preference --> International --> Input menu, enable the kotoeri. Pay attention to the default hot key, by default i think it conflicts with spotlight. I change the s to an l on mine. If you do have the quick かな key though, it doesn't really matter for you.

Sorry , I'm not talking about switching between typing English and Japanese ; I'm talking about actually operating the computer in a choice of either English or Japanese .

Not sure yet if I will get an English or Japanese keyboard .

 

[suneohair]

Sorry , I'm not talking about switching between typing English and Japanese ; I'm talking about actually operating the computer in a choice of either English or Japanese .

Not sure yet if I will get an English or Japanese keyboard .

ああそう！　I think you have to set that up when you initially install OS X. I don't know of another way to do it once you are setup.. I will look into it though.

 

[sushiman]

ああそう！　I think you have to set that up when you initially install OS X. I don't know of another way to do it once you are setup.. I will look into it though.

As I said , I have not bought the computer yet , but must this week as my Fujitsu is kaput .

 

[suneohair]

As I said , I have not bought the computer yet , but must this week as my Fujitsu is kaput .

Yeah, you will be fine. Just be sure to select Japanese upon setup. It should put everything in Japanese. がんばって！

 

[jonswan]

And I guess I'd be stating the obvious when I say that the 'Japanese' keyboard that comes as standard (unless you order the English only) comes with the standard English alphabet with some Japanese symbols + some punctuation keys are slightly different - to find what you're looking for you'll have to experiment a little. If you have both languages in use there's a button I believe to the right of the space bar that switches the language...

 

[sushiman]

And I guess I'd be stating the obvious when I say that the 'Japanese' keyboard that comes as standard (unless you order the English only) comes with the standard English alphabet with some Japanese symbols + some punctuation keys are slightly different - to find what you're looking for you'll have to experiment a little. If you have both languages in use there's a button I believe to the right of the space bar that switches the language...

BTW , I called the " English line " in Japan to get more info and , although he tried hard to explain , I couldn't grasp what the Japanese guy was saying . I had assumed they would have a gaijin answering the phone - I was wrong !

Yes , same as my Fujitsu .

 

[yojitani]

I'm not sure your question has been answered.... yes, you can. Sorry, I wrote a long post here and then remembered that we had switching on for a short while - hers in Japanese mine in English. Here's what you do (when you get the computer). Install the OS in English (since you are doing this). Once it is all set up, create a user account for your wife. Under system preferences, go to 'international'. Under "language' drag 日本語 to the top of your list. log out. log back in and bing bong! you're in Japanese... Some little hitches you might have will be with MS office. If you have the english version installed, it will still come out in English - or if you have the Japanese it will be japanese. etc. I don't know for sure about Apple apps like iwork, however.

In my case, my wife is terrible with computers and I don't want the extra hassle of navigating through Japanese to sort out any problems. So on my wife's computer (iMac) I installed the OS in English, but she runs everything in Japanese - she even installed the Japanese Firefox (but oddly, she likes safari). The only problem with this was that sometimes hotmail would render messages into mojibake - there is a little terminal change you need to make to solve this. Just check the help files on the system.

Finally, it doesn't really matter which keyboard you get. A couple of things are in different places, but otherwise it doesn't make a great deal of difference. Personally, I think that the @ key is in a more logical place on the Japanese keyboard.

 

[suneohair]

I'm not sure your question has been answered.... yes, you can. Sorry, I wrote a long post here and then remembered that we had switching on for a short while - hers in Japanese mine in English. Here's what you do (when you get the computer). Install the OS in English (since you are doing this). Once it is all set up, create a user account for your wife. Under system preferences, go to 'international'. Under "language' drag 日本語 to the top of your list. log out. log back in and bing bong! you're in Japanese... Some little hitches you might have will be with MS office. If you have the english version installed, it will still come out in English - or if you have the Japanese it will be japanese. etc. I don't know for sure about Apple apps like iwork, however.

In my case, my wife is terrible with computers and I don't want the extra hassle of navigating through Japanese to sort out any problems. So on my wife's computer (iMac) I installed the OS in English, but she runs everything in Japanese - she even installed the Japanese Firefox (but oddly, she likes safari). The only problem with this was that sometimes hotmail would render messages into mojibake - there is a little terminal change you need to make to solve this. Just check the help files on the system.

Finally, it doesn't really matter which keyboard you get. A couple of things are in different places, but otherwise it doesn't make a great deal of difference. Personally, I think that the @ key is in a more logical place on the Japanese keyboard.

Thanks!!!! I always wondered how to do it right!! Woot!!!!

 

[sushiman]

I'm not sure your question has been answered.... yes, you can. Sorry, I wrote a long post here and then remembered that we had switching on for a short while - hers in Japanese mine in English. Here's what you do (when you get the computer). Install the OS in English (since you are doing this). Once it is all set up, create a user account for your wife. Under system preferences, go to 'international'. Under "language' drag 日本語 to the top of your list. log out. log back in and bing bong! you're in Japanese... Some little hitches you might have will be with MS office. If you have the english version installed, it will still come out in English - or if you have the Japanese it will be japanese. etc. I don't know for sure about Apple apps like iwork, however.

In my case, my wife is terrible with computers and I don't want the extra hassle of navigating through Japanese to sort out any problems. So on my wife's computer (iMac) I installed the OS in English, but she runs everything in Japanese - she even installed the Japanese Firefox (but oddly, she likes safari). The only problem with this was that sometimes hotmail would render messages into mojibake - there is a little terminal change you need to make to solve this. Just check the help files on the system.

Finally, it doesn't really matter which keyboard you get. A couple of things are in different places, but otherwise it doesn't make a great deal of difference. Personally, I think that the @ key is in a more logical place on the Japanese keyboard.

Thanks for your reply . You are exactly correct . My wife called Apple Tokyo yesterday and they confirmed what you have already stated . Cheers !