Japanese Keyboards

Many Japanese learning sites that I've come across teach Japanese with Romanji. Well, let me tell you something. I hate Romanji, I hate it as much as any other real Japanese teacher does. I am told that it's the devil, and you should never learn it, for it will slow down your learning to a grind. TextFugu does include Romanji in the the course, but only for the first five lessons. When I study with smart.fm, they have you type in Romanji to spell out the kana on some of their cards; I really dislike this. So I decided to play around with the keyboard setting, and found out that my computer is able to use a real Japanese keyboard layout. Cool! I thought I could bypass the use of Romanji on a keyboard by buying a cover for my laptop.



This cover cost me about $30 CAN, and it still needs to break in a little. But it will be worth it in the long run.

So after putting on the cover and setting the keyboard layout to Japanese, I wanted to try it out on smart.fm. Well, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way on smart.fm. The flash program that smart.fm uses, doesn't recognize the input on the Japanese keyboard layout. But it wouldn't have helped that much on the site anyways, the layout was completely new to me, but this led to a area of learning, and a new project. Learning the Japanese keyboard layout.

I tried to search the web for a small program that can teach me how to memorize the keyboard layout, but I couldn't find a single source. I was very disappointed. So as a flash developer, I decided to create a very simple and basic desktop learning program.

The program will pick a random kana on your keyboard, and you must enter that kana on your keyboard. So far, I've only put in Hiragana, since my keyboard cover only shows Hiragana. I'm not sure if it's true for all Japanese keyboards. Let me know if it is different. Not only will you learn the layout, it will help you learn the sound of the kana without thinking of it in Romanji, which I wasn't expecting to happen when I tried it out.

Features:
- Displays a random Kana
- Plays sound of kana when displayed
- Replay sound of kana
- set time of delay before going to the next kana after a correct entry



-*NOTE!*-
You do not need to set your keyboard layout to Japanese.
For some reason, flash doesn't recognize kana input correctly, so I had to program a workaround using the english keyboard layout, and converting it to the Japanese layout. I may have to look into this later in the future.

The program isn't perfect, or the most polished, but it will get you started. Have fun learning the Japanese keyboard layout!
Download Here!

Tell me what you think, or if you spot a problem. Cheers!

Hello World!

Hello visitors! This is the first of hopefully many posts to come about my progress in learning the Japanese language.

When I hear that a certain someone is learning Japanese, I ask them why they are learning the language? Many of them have no answer, or a very short answer; They think its cool (not that its not), want to meet a Japanese girl friend, want to watch anime, etc. These reasons I've just mentioned have become very stereotypical of caucasians in my view. My reasons for learning the language are not of the typical.

- I've never learned a seconded language.
As a Canadian, the learning of the French language was part of the School curriculum. However, I was exempted from the course due to some problems I've had in school at a young age. Now that I am done college, I think its time to have more than just a single language on my belt.

- I want to break the habit where native Japanese have to speak in English.
I've met a few native Japanese students learning overseas in Vancouver, and many of them just seem like they have to speak in English to communicate with me or others. Sure, some of them are students who's purpose of learning overseas is to learn the English language, but I see it present in Japan as well, when English speaking foreigners are visiting the country; The Japanese pretty much have to speak in English to communicate with North Americans. I wish to break this habit, and have the experience of having a conversation in a language that is not native to myself.

- It may help me improve and broaden my artistic vision
There have been a numerous amount of times when I have been forward to a site about artistic inspiration, only to have been met by a language barrier where everything is written in Japanese. This happens a lot to me, especially on a site called wonder.fl ;its a site that compiles ActionScript code into flash animations. It's vital comments are heavily written in Japanese.

I am hoping with these reasons for learning Japanese, will help me push me even more to my final goal without giving up. And if you are interested in flash and interactive development, I have made another blog at http://rethinkinginteraction.blogspot.com .