Short answer: Add the Japanese IME in your system settings, switch to it, then type Japanese phonetically in Roman letters — nihongo becomes にほんご. Press Space to convert it to 日本語, and Enter to accept. That loop is the whole system.
Japanese is where typing stops being a keyboard problem and becomes a software one. You don’t need a Japanese keyboard, and you don’t need 2,000 keys. You need an IME — an input method editor — which takes what you type and offers you what you probably meant. Unlike Russian, which is just a layout swap, this is a genuine conversion step, and it’s worth understanding once rather than memorising per platform. If you write in several languages, start at the foreign-language typing hub.
Need marks outside the Japanese set? The full copy-and-paste symbol keyboard has every currency sign, arrow and punctuation mark on one page.
The loop: type → kana → convert → commit
Every Japanese IME on every platform runs the same four steps. Learn this and the rest is settings.
- Type romaji. You type
nihongoon an ordinary QWERTY keyboard. - Kana appear automatically. As you type, it becomes にほんご, with an underline showing the text isn’t final yet.
- Convert. Press Space. The IME offers 日本語, plus other readings — 二本後, にほんご, ニホンゴ — in a candidate window.
- Commit. Press Enter to accept. The underline disappears and the text is now real.
Two rules that save an hour of confusion:
- Underlined text is not committed. It’s still the IME’s, not your document’s. Escape discards it; Enter accepts it.
- Pressing Enter without converting commits the plain hiragana. That’s how you type かな deliberately — don’t press Space.
Windows
Add the IME:
- Settings → Time & language → Language & region → Add a language → Japanese → Install.
- Switch to it with Windows key + Space. The tray shows A (direct input) or あ (Japanese input).
- Toggle between あ and A with Alt + ` — the backtick key, top-left. This is the shortcut you’ll use hundreds of times a day; learn it before anything else.
Conversion keys, once you have underlined text:
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| Space | Convert; press again to cycle candidates |
| Tab | Move into the candidate window / expand it |
| ↑ ↓ or number keys | Pick a candidate directly |
| Enter | Commit |
| Esc | Discard the conversion, back to what you typed |
| F6 | Force to hiragana |
| F7 | Force to full-width katakana |
| F8 | Force to half-width katakana |
| F9 | Force to full-width alphanumeric |
| F10 | Force to half-width alphanumeric |
F7 is the one you’ll actually use — it’s how you get カタカナ for loanwords without hunting the candidate list.
One side effect worth knowing: with the Japanese IME active and text selected, F6–F10 are claimed by the IME, so app shortcuts bound to those keys stop working. Deselect the text, or switch back to direct input.
Mac
Add it under System Settings → Keyboard → Text Input → Edit → + → Japanese, then choose Japanese – Romaji (type Roman letters) or Japanese – Kana (for a physical Japanese keyboard). Switch input sources with Control + Space or the 🌐 globe key; the menu bar shows あ or A.
macOS has a feature Windows doesn’t: Live Conversion. With it on, hiragana turns into kanji as you type, with no Space press at all — you type oyasuminasai and 御休みなさい forms itself. It’s fast once trusted and disorienting while you’re learning, because the text keeps changing under your cursor.
If you’re a beginner, turn it off and use traditional conversion instead — you’ll learn the type-Space-choose-Enter rhythm properly. Input menu → Open Japanese – Romaji Settings → deselect Live Conversion. Turn it back on in a few months.
With Live Conversion on, Space still opens the candidate window for alternatives, Return confirms, and Esc takes you back to the hiragana you typed.
iPhone and Android
iPhone: Settings → General → Keyboard → Keyboards → Add New Keyboard → Japanese, then pick Kana (the 12-key flick keyboard) or Romaji (QWERTY). Add both if you’re unsure.
Flick input is the one Japanese speakers actually use, and it’s worth ten minutes of practice: the あ key holds あいうえお. Tap it for あ, or hold and flick — left for い, up for う, right for え, down for お. Every consonant row works the same way. It’s far faster than QWERTY on a phone once it’s in your fingers.
Android (Gboard): Settings → Languages → Add keyboard → Japanese, then choose the 12-key or QWERTY layout. Same flick behaviour, same conversion bar across the top: type, then tap a candidate.
On both phones, conversion candidates appear in a strip above the keyboard rather than in a popup window. Tap one instead of pressing Space.
Chromebook
Settings → Advanced → Languages and inputs → Inputs → Add input methods → Japanese. ChromeOS ships a Google Japanese Input engine, so conversion quality is good out of the box. Switch with Ctrl + Shift + Space, and toggle Japanese/direct input with Ctrl + Space or the launcher key + Space, depending on your build.
Linux
Linux needs a component installed, unlike everywhere else:
- Install an input framework and the Mozc engine — Google Japanese Input’s open-source core. On Ubuntu,
ibus-mozc; on Fedora or KDE setups,fcitx5-mozc. - Log out and back in — the framework only registers on session start, which is why “I installed it and nothing happened” is the standard first experience.
- Add Japanese (Mozc) under Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources.
- Switch with Super + Space; toggle kana/direct input with Ctrl + Space inside Mozc.
Romaji rules that trip people up
The IME accepts more than one romanisation — both shi and si give し, both sha and sya give しゃ. These are the ones people get stuck on:
| To get | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|
| ん | nn or n' | A single n before a vowel becomes な行 — hon'ya not honya |
| っ (small tsu) | double the next consonant | chotto → ちょっと |
| ー (long vowel) | the hyphen key | ra-men → ラーメン. Not a dash you paste |
| small kana | prefix x or l | xa → ぁ, xtsu → っ |
| を | wo | The particle, not お |
| ぢ / づ | di / du | zi and zu give じ and ず instead |
| ヴ | vu | For v-sounds in loanwords |
The IME is also a symbol picker
This is the part almost nobody tells you, and it’s genuinely useful even if you never write a Japanese sentence.
The IME’s dictionary contains symbols, not just words. Type the Japanese reading of a symbol, press Space, and it appears in the candidate list:
まる→ ○ ● ◎さんかく→ △ ▲ばつ→ × ✕みぎ→ → ⇒ ➡えん→ ¥ 円 (see the yen symbol guide)ゆうびん→ 〒ほし→ ★ ☆おなじ→ 々
It’s often the fastest symbol picker on the machine — faster than Character Map, faster than hunting an emoji panel. Greek letters work too: らむだ gives λ.
Japanese punctuation
Japanese punctuation is full-width — it occupies the same square em as a kanji. Using ASCII , and . in Japanese text looks visibly wrong, and the IME produces the correct ones automatically when it’s in Japanese mode.
| Mark | Name | Use | Unicode | HTML |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 、 | 読点 (touten) | Comma | U+3001 | 、 |
| 。 | 句点 (kuten) | Full stop | U+3002 | 。 |
| 「 」 | 鉤括弧 | Quotation marks | U+300C / U+300D | 「 / 」 |
| 『 』 | 二重鉤括弧 | Quotes within quotes, titles | U+300E / U+300F | 『 / 』 |
| ・ | 中黒 | Separates items in a list | U+30FB | ・ |
| ー | 長音符 | Lengthens a vowel in katakana | U+30FC | ー |
| 〜 | 波ダッシュ | Ranges, “from–to” | U+301C | 〜 |
| ※ | 米印 | Note, “see below” | U+203B | ※ |
| 〒 | 郵便記号 | Precedes a postal code | U+3012 | 〒 |
| 々 | 踊り字 | Repeats the previous kanji (人々) | U+3005 | 々 |
| 〆 | 〆 | “Closed”, used on envelopes | U+3006 | 〆 |
The kana blocks themselves run U+3041–U+309F for hiragana and U+30A1–U+30FF for katakana, in matching order — which is why あ (U+3042) and ア (U+30A2) sit exactly 0x60 apart. More on how the blocks are laid out: what Unicode is.
Japanese in HTML and CSS
UTF-8 handles Japanese directly. Two things matter beyond the charset:
html
<html lang="ja">
<p>日本語で書く。「引用」もできます。</p>Set lang="ja" — without it, browsers may render CJK glyphs using a Chinese or Korean font, and the shapes differ enough for native readers to notice (this is the Han unification problem, not a bug in your CSS). It also gives screen readers the right voice.
Two CSS properties earn their place in Japanese layout:
css
p { word-break: normal; line-break: strict; } /* respects kinsoku line-breaking rules */
.vertical { writing-mode: vertical-rl; } /* traditional vertical text */Japanese wraps between almost any two characters, so you rarely need word-break: break-all — and line-break: strict stops small kana like っ and ゃ from starting a line, which is the rule typesetters follow.
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| I type but get Roman letters | The IME is in direct input (A). Press Alt + ` on Windows, or check the menu bar shows あ on a Mac |
| Text keeps changing as I type on Mac | That’s Live Conversion. Turn it off in Japanese – Romaji Settings while you’re learning |
| ん comes out as な or の | Type nn for ん, or use an apostrophe: hon'ya |
| My katakana won’t appear | Press F7 after typing to force full-width katakana |
| F6–F10 broke my app shortcuts | The IME claims them while text is selected. Deselect, or switch to direct input |
| Nothing happened after installing Mozc on Linux | Log out and back in — the input framework registers at session start |
| Japanese renders in the wrong-looking font | Missing lang="ja", so the browser picked a Chinese or Korean font. See also symbols showing as boxes |
| The IME converted to the wrong kanji | Press Esc to go back to hiragana, or Space again to cycle. The IME learns from what you commit |
Which method should you use?
| If you… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Need one punctuation mark right now | Copy it from the grid above |
| Are learning Japanese | Romaji input, Live Conversion off, hiragana mode |
| Type Japanese daily on a Mac | Turn Live Conversion on — it’s genuinely faster |
| Type on a phone | Learn flick input. Ten minutes, permanent payoff |
| Only need a symbol like ○ or 〒 | Type its reading and convert — often faster than any picker |
| Are on Linux | Install Mozc, then log out and back in |
Writing other languages too? See how to type in Russian, or the foreign-language typing hub for every guide.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a Japanese keyboard to type in Japanese?
No. Almost everyone, including native speakers, types Japanese phonetically in Roman letters on an ordinary keyboard and lets the IME convert it. A Japanese keyboard adds dedicated kana keys and mode-switching keys, but it isn’t necessary and doesn’t make you faster unless you learn kana input.
What is an IME?
An IME, or input method editor, is software that turns what you type into the characters you want. For Japanese it converts Roman letters into hiragana, then offers kanji candidates you choose from. Every major operating system includes one for Japanese at no cost.
How do I switch between Japanese and English while typing?
On Windows, press Alt + ` to toggle between あ and A, or Windows key + Space to change language entirely. On a Mac, press Control + Space or the globe key. On ChromeOS, Ctrl + Shift + Space. On Linux, Super + Space. On a phone, tap the globe key.
How do I type katakana instead of hiragana?
Type the word as usual, then press F7 on Windows to force full-width katakana before committing. On a Mac, press Space until the katakana candidate appears in the candidate window, or switch the input mode to Katakana in the input menu.
Why does my ん come out wrong?
A single n followed by a vowel is read as part of the next kana — na, ni, nu. Type nn for ん, or separate it with an apostrophe, so 本屋 is hon'ya rather than honya.
Can I type Japanese punctuation without the IME?
Yes — 、。「」・ー and the rest are ordinary Unicode characters you can copy from the grid on this page or insert with their code points. But if you’re writing Japanese text, the IME produces them automatically when it’s in Japanese mode, which is less work.
Written by Igor R. Tested on Windows 11, macOS, iOS, Android, ChromeOS and Linux. Last updated August 2026. Character code points follow the Unicode Standard.