does anyone here use Thumb-Shift input method?

[FinancialWar]

Just curious if anyone here use Thumb-Shift input method? It seems to be a more effective method than romaji-kana IME.

According to http://nicola.sunicom.co.jp/thumb4_1.html, this method is nearly twice as fast as Romaji-Kana method. I really like to improve my typing speed.

If you have any experience please share it with me, how popular is it in Japan and how to get it on Windows 7 64bit?

Thanks.

 

[Mike Cash]

You typed that with your keyboard set to Dvorak, I suppose.

 

[FinancialWar]

Yes, I do. Dvorak is very good layout for the romaji-kana method as all the vowels are on the lift side and consonants on the right, however the number of keystrokes is not reduced. But I wonder if the thumb-shift method is better due to reduced keystrokes needed and even superior layout?

 

[Mike Cash]

It looks interesting. If I had to do a whole lot of Japanese typing I would probably try to learn it.

 

[FinancialWar]

have you seen anyone use it in Japan? On wikipedia, it says that thumb-shift is popular among lawyers, screenwriters etc, I suppose many white collars in Japan use them. I mean 40 percent reduction in number of keystrokes is a big deal.

 

[Mike Cash]

Your post was the first time I ever heard of it.

 

[Toritoribe]

I only know the name "Thumb-shift/NICOLA" but have never seen any actual users. The Japanese wikipedia says 親指シフト規格の支持者には一般的なユーザのみではなく、作家やライター、記者・編集者などのマスコミのほか、事務・司法書士など、大量の文書を日常的に作成する職業に就いている人も多い。 "Besides ordinary users, there are also many people who write a large amount of sentences, including authors, writers, editers, and lawyers among Thump-shift supporters", i.e., the site never says "it's popular among them."

According to the results of a survey in January 2007 by Rakuten Resurch, 0.7 per cent of those surveyed used Thump-shift kana imput method.

 

[FinancialWar]

Thanks for the replies. Guess I'll stick with romaji-kana for now.