typing hiragana on an english keyboard...

Ok, I've done some searching through the pathetic "help button" that Microsoft gives for the language bar and I've done some searching on google as well to try and find how to input japanese characters with the US keyboard.

Basically, I just want to know how to set up my keyboard so that when I press a button (like "the F key") on the laptop, it will show a japanese character onscreen.

Thanks in advance.

Are you using XP or Vista? Some more information would be very helpful. I could help you on Vista since I've done it.

あえいおうはへひふほ。 So on and so forth.

Im using XP. also, for my keyboard, its just a normal laptop keyboard with a "101/102 Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard" driver version 5.1.2600.2825

Im guessing that just means "generic"

You can't actually type f and type a japanese character. like...

fu = ふ

I don't think you can set it up like how you want it unless you have a japanese keyboard.

But I've been wrong.

Yes you can. I just did it in my last post. I don't know how to do it in XP, sorry.

In Vista you just type how the kana sounds.

If you type (to take illumi's example) fu/hu you end up with ふ. It's just like typing in English, only the end result is kana or kanji. You get normal letters by capitalizing　the first word and putting a space creates what I assume is kanji: 名前.

あいえうおはひふへほまみむめも.

Too bad you aren't using Vista. Sorry I can't help you.

yarg..

alrighty guess its back to searching the net. Hey, just for the heck of it, go ahead and explain how you changed your keyboard input in vista. maybe I can get a bit of inspiration on where to look in XP.