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こんいちわ～！ Welcome To Typing In Japanese: A Tutorial. [Admins, I didn't see a thread anywhere for this. Feel free to delete it or whatever if I'm just blind and there really is one already xD ] [Please Note: The Operating System that I use on my laptop is Windows Vista. Which is now pretty old :hamtaro-005 (5): So the interface may look considerably different from yours, however the menus should be relatively the same. I apologize in advanced for any confusion] Tutorial: I'm going to break everything down in very simple steps and I have included pictures just in case any of the steps are a bit confusing to understand from reading or you just want to make sure that you're doing it correctly. But I think you'll find it's fairly easy. So with that in mind let's get started!! Step One: Click on the start menu in the bottom left corner [Windows 8 of course looks different but either way locate your 'start' menu] and click on Control Panel. Step Two: Click on Clock, Language and Region. Depending on which view you have your Control Panel set to will change what, exactly, you're looking for. I generally have mine set 'Control Panel Home' the default view. But regardless of how yours is set up, you're basically looking for the little globe and clock icon. Step Three: Under this section you are going to click Change Keyboards or Other Input Methods. This will open a new window titled Region and Language Options. In this window you will click on the Keyboards and Languages tab and then you will click on the button labeled Change Keyboards... Step Four: From there you will open another window titled Text Services And Input Languages. Here you will see two sections: one titled Default Input Language, one titled Installed Services. Here you'll see that your default setting is English (at least in my case). In the Installed Services section you'll click the button Add... Step Five: This takes you to yet another window titled Add Input Language. This is essentially a massive list of languages that windows is set up to work in. In this list you simply scroll down and locate Japanese. Once you find it you want to click the tiny + box. This will show you two more options each with their own tiny + boxes: Keyboard and Other. Under Keyboard make sure that the Japanese and Microsoft IME boxes are selected. And under Other make sure that Ink Correction is selected. Once you have done that simply click OK. Step Six: This will take you back to the Text Services And Input Languages window. If you have done everything correctly up until now you will see both Japanese and English in the Installed Services section (indicated by the green circle in the picture). Then simply hit Apply and OK EXTRA HELP: Step Seven: Once you've finished all that, your computer is ready for you to type!! At the bottom right corner of your screen (where you're time, battery, internet connect ect.) You should now see the letters 'EN' and a ? button. By clicking on the 'EN' you can toggle between languages. Step Eight: Once you've selected Japanese (indicated by the 'JP' letters) you'll see a red dot and paint brush, and several other tiny buttons. First and foremost, by selecting the Red Dot and Pain Brush you will be able to toggle between the Japanese keyboard and the Microsoft IME. Microsoft IME allows you to be able to type in Hirgana/Katakana/Kanji phonetically (by how they sound). This is a HUGE help for those of us who have QWERTY style keyboards, because it saves you from having to memorize the positions of keys on an actual Japanese keyboard. So make sure that this is selected. Step Nine: Next you can toggle what you type by clicking on the Hiragana (あ) right next to the red dot and paint brush. By clicking on it you'll bring up a menu with several typing style options. Typically when I'm typing something in Japanese I use the first option in the menu: Hiragana. Each option does something different and you can experiment with those as you get used to using it. FINAL: Now you will be able to toggle back and forth between English and Japanese, pretty much whenever you feel like it. Simply open up something to type into and voila~! You can change back to English simply by clicking on the 'JP' and clicking English again. You'll notice that 'EN' reappears. [TIP: when typing in Japanese, it is helpful to be mindful of the space bar. Taping the space bar will change your Hiragana into various Kanji that make a similar sound to the Hiragana you're typing. It is helpful but can be a bit confusing at first so be mindful of that!!] SOOO THAT'S IT!!! YOU DID IT!! ... If you have any questions feel free to simply reply in this thread or pm me, and I will try to help you as best as I can. ENJOY~!!