Japanese Keyboard

Common questions

How do I type Japanese with an English keyboard?

Type the romaji into the box and each syllable becomes kana as soon as it is complete: ka gives か, kyo gives きょ, and watashi ha gakusei desu gives わたし は がくせい です. A letter still waiting for its vowel stays visible as a Latin letter until the next key decides it, and an n at the end of a word becomes ん when you type a space or move on. Spaces stay exactly as you type them, and written Japanese usually leaves them out. Hepburn spellings (shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji) and the Kunrei ones (si, ti, tu, hu, zi) both work, and capitals type the same kana as small letters. If you would rather click, the kana keys insert at the cursor, with the romaji printed under each one.

Why does konnichiha give こんにちは and not こんいちは?

Because of the rule this page uses for n: n before any consonant but y is ん, and the n of ni is a consonant, so the first n of konnichiha becomes ん and the second starts に. If you learned to type nn for ん on a computer, that works too: nn with no vowel or y after it is one ん, so konnnichiha gives the same こんにちは. The case that needs your help is n before a vowel or y, where the page cannot know whether you mean a syllable or ん. kani gives かに, so type n' when you mean ん: kan'i gives かんい and kan'ya gives かんや. The apostrophe never reaches the text.

How do I type small kana like っ, ゃ and ぁ?

Three ways. A doubled consonant gives a small っ, so gakkou is がっこう and kitte is きって, and t before ch does the same, so matcha is まっちゃ. The combined sounds come straight from their spelling: kya is きゃ, sho is しょ. For any small kana on its own, put an x or an l in front: xa is ぁ, xtsu is っ, xya is ゃ, xwa is ゎ. On the keys, click the full-size kana and then 小, and it becomes small; click 小 again to undo it. The ゛ and ゜ keys work the same way on the kana before the cursor, so か becomes が and は becomes ぱ.

How do I type katakana and the long vowel mark?

Switch the mode to Katakana and the same romaji gives katakana, and the keys show katakana too. A hyphen types the long mark ー in either mode, so ko-hi- in katakana gives コーヒー. Loanword sounds are typed from their parts: fa gives ファ, thi gives ティ, she gives シェ, va gives ヴァ. Text you already typed in hiragana can be changed with To katakana, which converts the selection, or the whole text when nothing is selected; To hiragana goes the other way. Kanji, Latin letters and punctuation are left as they are.

Why is the particle wa typed ha?

Because this page types spelling, not sound. The topic particle is pronounced wa but written は, so you type ha, which is also why konnichiha is spelled that way; konnichiwa gives こんにちわ, a common misspelling. The same goes for the particle o, written を and typed wo, and e, written へ and typed he. Long vowels are typed out as written too: toukyou gives とうきょう. The page cannot know which word you mean, so it never guesses, and the same keys always give the same kana.

Can it turn kana into kanji?

No. This is a kana keyboard: there is no dictionary behind it, so it does not suggest kanji, it does not translate, and it cannot tell you how a name is read. Kanji conversion needs a Japanese input method with its dictionary; Windows, macOS, iOS and Android all include one in their language settings. What this page is for is typing kana accurately and seeing why each one came out as it did. Kanji you paste in are left untouched: only Latin letters become kana, and only while Romaji is set to To kana.

Is my text saved or sent anywhere?

Nothing is uploaded: the table and the typing run in this page, in your browser. Your draft, the hiragana or katakana choice and the romaji setting are kept in this browser so the page opens where you left it, and the Start over button at the top of the page forgets them. The .txt download is the text exactly as it is in the box, encoded as UTF-8 with no byte-order mark, so it opens correctly in any modern editor.