There are a lot of shortcuts for Japanese input. Some are standard and seem to work on any device, others I suspect only work in particular places.
Note that my Windows specific tricks were discovered under Windows XP, and I don't know if they'll work on other versions.
Mode Changes (Windows specific)
If your language bar is set to English, and you want to switch to Japanese, press alt + shift at the same time. This will also take you from Japanese back to English, or step through other installed languages.
If your language bar is set to Japanese, but is in direct-input mode (you still get roman letters when you type) press alt + tilde at the same time. (A tilde is the "~" character below the esc key.)
Type Conversion (Windows specific)
If you've typed 「ぱーてぃー」, before "setting" the text (that is, while the text is still underlined by the input editor) press F7 to convert it from hiragana to katakana.
If you've typed 「ぱｒｔｙ」 and what you really wanted was 「party」, press F10 before setting the text to convert to roman letters.
Similar to the above two examples, you can use F8 to convert to half-width ｶﾀｶﾅ, and you can use F9 to convert to fixed-width roman letters. Pressing F6 repeatedly will step through converting only part of what you've typed. Pressing F5 opens the IME Pad and attempts to find... I'm not quite sure. If you know how this is intended to be used, please let me know!
Odd Characters (standard everywhere)
To get the little ィ in パーティー type either "li" or "xi". This works for ぁ、ぃ、ぅ、ぇ、ぉ、 and っ. 外来語 is a common place to use this as in the previous example as well as ディズニランド. Other usages include emphasis: 「すっっっごくおいしい！」 and (for lack of a better word) vowel extension: 「さぁね！」 which I'm told reads a little "cuter" than 「さーね！」
To get to づ type "du".
Shortcuts (standard everywhere)
Instead of typing out "shi" for し just type "si". Likewise instead of "chi" for ち simply type "ti".
Graphics (tested only on Windows)
You can insert graphical characters in two cases that I know of. To make a star ☆ or ★ or ※ type 「ほし」 and scroll through the list of kanji conversions until you find those options. Similarly, to make a musical note ♪ type 「おんぷ」and you will find it in it's list of kanji conversions.
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3 comments:
I tested your tricks on ANTHY input in Ubuntu and they worked! You're a lifesiver - I've never been able to figure out how to input the small ぃ before. Also, the ★ and ♪ are hilarious!
Thanks Nolan, glad they helped. In the time since I originally wrote this post, I've noticed that almost all of these tricks seem to work just about everywhere. The alt-shift and alt-tilde though are likely OS specific?
Hi there,
Would you by any chance know the shortcut to back to hiragana when you're at some mode other than hiragana and half-width alphanumeric?
In other words, there are 5 modes of input: hiragana, full-width katanaka, full-width alphanumeric, half-width, half-width alpha-numeric.
Pressing Alt-tilde will take back back and forth between whatever I'm on and half-width alphanumeric. If what I am on is hiragana then pressing alt-tilde a second time will take me back to it. However I can't get back to hiragana with a keyboard shortcut when I'm accidentally in the 3/5 other input modes.
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