romaji input vs kana input, which is better?

[FinancialWar]

hello, question is in the title

 

[Ben Bullock]

Everyone uses romaji input.

 

[FinancialWar]

everybody uses qwerty, by dvorak is much better.

 

[Elizabeth]

Well, kana input fell in my lap so to speak after the hard drive reformat (basically everything screwed) and whatever IME preferences I tried to restore didn't take. So now there are little stickers where you see hiragana and katakana set up in a similar way to the qwerty keyboard.

It isn't a recommendation, by the way. Fewer keystrokes, yes. But getting the accented characters (long vowels and consonants) and two morae when there is only one syllable is so difficult as to make it practically worthless for straight kana input.

 

[FinancialWar]

yo Eli, if you have windows 7, you can easily change between romaji and kana input by clicking the "KANA" button on the bottom right corner of the language bar.

i have been using romaji for the past 6 years i just want to make sure if kana would be a more efficient input method.

 

[tummai]

Romaji is far easier for me. Although you will probably end up learning both as the little search kiosks at libraries and bookstores are usually kana input. But for your own personal use, romaji input.

 

[undrentide]

Romaji input is very common and popular compared with kana input among native Japanese speakers.
It is easier to remember the key layout with roman alphabets (which is only 26) than kana (at least more than 40), and if one is to type both Japanese and English, tp stick to romaji input is far easier. though it really up to the person and which typing method s/he got used to.

 

[Elizabeth]

yo Eli, if you have windows 7, you can easily change between romaji and kana input by clicking the "KANA" button on the bottom right corner of the language bar.

i have been using romaji for the past 6 years i just want to make sure if kana would be a more efficient input method.

Windows 7 is still pretty poor and has very little support, especially for audio (which is my main use). Just for thrills, though, I may download IME in ENGLISH this time on the work computer...

As for romaji v. kana, the one or two native speakers I know that use kana can definitely work it as quickly. Like an abacus, it takes getting used to be can be very fast and efficient once you get the hang of it (reminds self to get started . With the built-in productive advantage of fewer keystrokes.

 

[FinancialWar]

and another question, when I'm typing Japanese using IME, to swap between Japanese and English, I would press " left Alt + ` " , but if I want to change between hiragana and katakana, what do I press?