Comment by kalleboo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kalleboo | Hacker News Reader

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> that current methods require typing a phonetic equivalent using an alien character set [ie. Latin] which is then translated back to the desired Japanese character set

FWIW, the common "flick" method on phones is done using the native hiragana characters which by a coincidence handily map onto a T9-style layout https://lpgen.line-scdn.net/mobile-guide/7037/images/169626/...

Keyboard sold in Japan have the corresponding kana on their keys so you can input using native characters, but it's generally "only used by old people" https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/WdEEFbM3kmER2rJReyr0...

So using latin characters isn't required per se, but on PCs it tends to be a choice.

Keyboard with kana is inconvenient because it is just latin 26-keys keyboard and Japanese has about 40 kana characters. If they have added an additional row then it would allow typing twice faster than on a latin keyboard (because one kana character is equivalent to 2-3 latin characters).

But keyboard manufacturers do not want to make better keyboards for non-latin countries, they just overlay foreign characters on standard 26-key keyboard because it is cheaper.

Japanese keyboards aren't mere standard Latin keyboards. They have several additional keys which make them physically a distinct layout to what the rest of the world uses.

They only have a couple extra keys when they need maybe an extra row. (IMO unnecessary) Trade offs have been made, like in most non US latin languages, for compatibility with the US keyboard layout. It is similar to the European keyboard layout where it is painfully obvious that they would have a much more efficient layout if they just added more keys, but they chose not too because then it would differ too much from the US standard.

last URL 403s

Oops, didn't wait for it to load enough. Here's a wikimedia link for another JIS keyboard https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Lo...

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