Typing in Japanese

I was watching 'Death Note' the movie last night and noticed that when they were typing on a computer and in text messages, they put in some sort of hirigana and then it changed into something shorter when they had finished typing it. What happened? I know from using the predictive text feature of my mobile phone that computers very rarely guess what word you want correctly, so I was wondering how japanese ones work. Also, how would I type in japanese (not romanji) on my english keyboard? Any feedback greatly appreciated.

Hello there! If you want to write in Japanese you can go the Microsoft home page and download Global IME, this will allow you to type in the syllables in romaji but have Japanese come up on your screen. However, if you're asking about being able to type Japanese straight, without using the romaji, then you'd have to get a Japanese keyboard. It looks the same as the English one, just has the Hiragana and Katagana also inscribed next to the english letters. About texting on Japanese keitai's (cellphones), usually how it works is that the cell phone remembers the words you often use, or, some people program their phones to remember that a certain word = a shorter version. Nowadays, Japanese cellphones are being updated on a daily basis, so I wouldn't be surprised if they've got some new technology that enables it to just "guess" correctly. :P

on my mac, when i type romaji, it is converted into hiragana. then if while still in hiragana mode, i press the space bar, the computer guesses at the proper kanji substitution. so possibly the short form you are referring to is kanji. usually the computer is correct, but the same written (but sometimes subtly different sounding) hiragana words have different kanji, so the computer is not always correct. example: hashi (はし) can mean chopsticks (箸), bridge (橋) or edge (端), all with different kanji.

Mac 117,000, PC nil.

So what your saying, is that with that windows IME I can type the romanji and it will automatically switch it to kanji? It there any way it can be done in reverse so that the kanji switches to romanji? Sorry if this has been answered, this is all very new to me.

Dear Sintpart, Konnichiwa! Yes, with windows IME you can type in *Romaji*, and it will switch to *hiragana* first, which then when you hit the space bar, it will change to *Kanji*. If it's not the *kanji* you want, keep hitting the space bar! About doing the reverse, *kanji* to *romaji*, I don't think you can, but if you want *kanji* to *hiragana*, just right click on the *kanji *(remember to highlight the entire word) and it should give you a list of possible other *kanji*'s for the same word, and the *hiragana* version of it.