Keyboard frenzy

By far the most time-consuming, energy-zapping and frustrating part of working in Japan isn’t the language barrier, the working hours or the culture clash; it is all down to the Japanese keyboard.

The fact the apostrophe is under SHIFT-7 is bad enough, but the real stress comes from the switch between kana and romaji input. The SPACE bar is tiny, which sort of looks cute, but is flanked by two scary looking keys covered in kanji. Looking at the bottom row of my keyboard now the keys are, from left to right: Ctrl, Windows key, Alt, crazy kanji, tiny space, another crazy kanji, some kana switch key, another Alt, another Windows key, another kanji and finally another Ctrl. It’s a full house down there and it’s easy to miss the space and switch the keyboard input into something insane.

The way Japanese is types is phonetic. For example “baka” would be typed as “b, a, k, a” followed by ENTER or alternatively SPACE if it needs to be writ in kanji. So for every word you type you need a carriage return. If there are more kanji available for the sound you typed, which is pretty much always, a second tap of the spacebar brings up a tiny window with a googolplex suggestions. So not only is the input of Japanese text laborious, it is also a two-step process, unlike typing romaji. So if you’re concentrating in Photoshop, using hotkeys and shortcuts and suddenly the program isn’t responding, it is more than likely your thumb slipped and you’re typing “vvvvvvv” rather than selecting the “move” tool.

Slips of the finger are one thing, but the PC deciding you want to write in kana without your permission is another. For some reason typing the name in a Photoshop layer reverts the input to kana. Right-clicking on one of those hateful red wriggly lines Microsoft Word seems hell-bent on littering my documents with reverts the input to kana. Switching from certain programs to others can sometimes revert the input to kana.

To switch back to romaji you need to press the Alt key and some horrendous little key left of the “1” where European keyboard have the tilde. Other keys are littered with extra options, though the kana on the qwerty keys can be ignored the overall effect can give you a headache. It’s not quite as bad as those hilarious kanji keyboard photos that did the rounds years ago but it’s fairly groanworthy nonetheless.

While typing this post I accidentally switched input method three times, and one of those times I got stuck in capitalised romaji. It took me a good 15 minutes to set it back to regular (and no, it wasn't the Caps Lock) which is when the blood starts boiling. Be prepared to shop around for an English PC with an English system and the Queen's own UK keyboard or waste literally minutes switching inputs and cursing.