The big difference will be that yours will probably not have the Japanese keyboard already installed. Then, you should see something like the following Text Services and Input Languages menu. You should then see something like the Region and Language menu below. Under Clock, Language, and Region, click on Change keyboards or other input methods Installing the Japanese Microsoft IME on Windows 7Ĭlick on the start button (that glossy windows thing in the lower left corner of your screen) and open up the control panel. It is quite simple to set up and use actually. This is actually a little freebie that has been thrown into Windows. Nowadays, you have this handy thing called the IME that does some crazy voodoo magic to allow you to type pretty easily in Japanese. As a matter of fact Japanese keyboards still have kana printed on them, but only older people use them anymore. Before the dawn of Windows, people who wanted to type in Japanese had to type with a kana keyboard. So it only makes sense that if you are practicing a language, you should be able to type in that language as well, right? These days you have it pretty easy. Can you even imagine how much typing you do on a daily basis? Between Facebook, Twitter and email, your little fingers are probably quite busy typing away on the average day. Typing has become such a critical part of our lives.