How to view and write Japanese characters on English-based computers

Writing in Japanese in popular Microsoft products (Office, Outlook) has become much easier in the past several years. Basically, for most users (except some dinosaurs with old Windows 95 and old Office versions), you can just install Microsoft's Global Input Method Editor (IME)

For Windows users in search of more of a hand-holding approach, check out greggman.com's Windows XP Japanese Input tutorial or the "'Gon Method' in English" section at the Nihongo-OK site (covers Windows 95/98/me/NT/2000/XP).

For a pretty good (though not at all simplistic) overview of the various Japanese language encoding schemes, check out Japanese Text Encoding by Ka-Ping Yee (creator of Shodouka). Or check out A complete introduction to Japanese character encodings.

You need an electronic dictionary!

Read "Choosing an Electronic Dictionary", a brief, unpolished article I am working on covering some basics of a search for a good electronic dictionary.

Read a not-so-brief, unpolished article I am working on about using PDAs to improve your Japanese. It's titled "Studying Japanese Using a PDA". Additionally, Peter Rivard has written an article about setting up a PDA to be a super dictionary. And scroll below for other useful technology resources, most having to do with dictionary functions.

Below are some randomly selected links to sites related to the selection and purchase of electronic dictionaries.

• Zaurus Otaku Kurabu (ZOK)
• Wordtank Central

Dealing with Japanese when programming websites

Web Programming Information

First, let me say I am no expert and only know what I do from lots of frustrating experimentation and research. What I have found is that working with Japanese when programming websites is a hassle because there are 3 major encoding schemes and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. I recommend you learn at least the basics of these (see above for decent resources). Now, I can't possibly anticipate problems you will encounter but below I will tell you about very useful resources I have found.

One thing you may wish to do at some point is convert between the three encoding schemes. Thankfully, if you use PHP, the newer versions (>=4.06) contains the mb_convert_encoding function to do this.

Note: before I found the built-in PHP function, I had stumbled across someone who wrote PHP functions to do this. His website and readme files are entirely in Japanese, but I was able to figure out how to use them without too much trouble based on his naming conventions. The main set of functions to download are called jcode-LE. There are other functions called just jcode that may also be helpful but I haven't used them yet.

Guides to public Internet access locations

• Freespot Map - Japan

Other technical or technology-related information

The MIT Kanji Project uses QuickTime movies to display kanji stroke order. If you are not able to see them (by clicking on the kanji graphic file) you will need to install/upgrade your Quicktime.

• Learnit Lists
• rikaichan
• KingKanji
• Nintendo DS, kanji dictionary
• Samurai Kanji
• The Super Dictionary