Japanese in Mac OS X

[zarusoba]

Can anyone give me simple instructions for typing Japanese in Mac OS X (10.3.9)?

I've got the International Preferences configured correctly and I can type Hiragana and Katakana.

How do I convert a Hiragana word into Kanji? I've done it before with Japanese keyboards, but this is my first time trying with a Roman-only keyboard.

F7 converts Hiragana into Katakana, but which key do I use to convert Hiragana into Kanji?

Yoroshiku!

(I was surprised at how unhelpful Apple Help is on this one.)

 

[zarusoba]

Kanji

Oh, I see. The space bar converts type to Kanji. Any other tips would be appreciated.

 

[mkrishnan]

Really? I thought it was very intuitive....

When you are typing in hiragana, you type a word or phrase phonetically. When you are ready to convert to kanji, you press the space bar. If the default is not the correct one, you can use the down / up arrows to change the selection. In cases where you have several words / elements to separately transliterate, you use the left/right keys to move between which elements you want to transliterate.

From memory, this is almost identical to the J-IME in Windows, isn't it?

Or am I completely misunderstanding what you want to do?

 

[zarusoba]

Kanji

Thanks for that.

(Japanese keyboards have specific keys for conversion, so it's a bit easier.)

 

[mkrishnan]

Ahhh, I see... did you have one for your Windows computer? You could buy one for your Mac, or else plug your Windows one in, if it's a USB keyboard...