IME Pad Kanji Input
Summary: There has been some buzz recently about the Nintendo DS's Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten Ώ»Μάάyψ«T because it supports kanji input by hand (stylus / stroke-sensitive). The dictionary is a great tool, but if portability is not an issue, Windows users can do pretty much the same thing for free on their computer right now. The directions below show you how to use the IME Pad.
Using the IME Pad
- If you have not done so already, set up your computer to accept Japanese input (Robert Y. Eng's page has very clear instructions).
- Start an Internet browser, DDWIN, or any other program that allows you to type in words. In browsers you will want to click in a text box first to enable the language toolbar.
- Left-click uIME pbhv on the language toolbar and click uθ«v to bring up the IME Pad.
- Clear the display by clicking uΑv (erase).
- Using your mouse, write the character. You will have better results if you use the correct stroke order.
- You should be able to see your character on the right by now. If you mouse over it, the readings will appear. If you left-click on it, the character will disappear from the IME Pad and re-appear on the screen.
- Now you can look up your character in dictionaries. I prefer my main page because I can search ALC and Yahoo! Dictionaries (ε«ς, Kg ήκΐp«T, and vObVuap«T) without having to re-enter the character.
- If you are looking for a particularly old or obscure character, you may want to try looking it up using the Chinese (Taiwan) language IME Pad. If the character does not appear in the online Japanese dictionaries, I recommend the Chinese to English dictionary at MDBG and Chinese to Chinese dictionary at Guoyu Cidian κηT. Links to these and other dictionaries can be found on my main page.
Other Helpful Sites
