tlug: Recommend Japanese KB?? (was: Re: US student moving to Tokyo)

[Hernando TANAKA <ktanaka@example.com>]

Rob Bickel wrote:
> Do you plan to use Japanese on it?  If so, I recommend buying
> here to get the Japanese keyboard in it.

Hi, I'm a japanese currently living in the US for some reason:-)
I, as a japanese, won't recommend japanese keyboard.
I had no problem using us-keyboard on any OS so far in my life.

The only advantage of using jp-keyboard that I can think of is,

  + You can directly input japanese kana, the (kinda) japanese
    basic alphabet.

I use roman input method, which I beleave is used by
the majority of japanese.  This method is just a little bit
slower than kana input method, but uses MUCH less keys.
If fast typing is essential, you should learn two-stroke
kanji input methods, such as T-code, TUT-code, etc ;-)

The disadvantages (for me) of using jp-keyboard are;

  - Some extra keys are added

	Especialy for notebook PCs, which have restricted area
	for keys, this means the keys have to be "shrinked" to
	fit in the space.  It would be nice if all the keys
	were shrinked evenly, but for some unknown reasons,
	only some of the keys are shrinked.  Some cases they
	get only the HALF width of the original us-kb.

  - Symbols are arranged differently.

	I can't just accept such a keyboard whose asterisk (*)
	is not on Shift-8. (I can't even remember where it was
	on a jp-kb)

Seriously, these "features" sucks me!!
Whenever possible, I try to avoid jp-keyboards.

I really like to hear from others what they think about this.


--- Kenny TANAKA
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