Typing my name

Typing in Japanese isn't as hard as people usually think it would be. You actually just type the sounds of a word phonetically, then select the correct characters for the word you mean from a list of homophones. Since there are no spaces in Japanese, the space bar is conveniently repurposed to cycle through this list.

So if I want to type "kyoudai", which means "brother", I just switch into Japanese mode and type the word phonetically:

kyo-u-da-i -> きょうだい

Then I hit the space bar to cycle through all the words pronounced "kyoudai"...

強大 - powerful
京大 - Kyoto University
鏡台 - dressing table
兄弟 - brother

... and hit "enter" when I've got the right one.

Once you get used to this, you can type in Japanese about as fast as in a phonetically spelled language.

Ironically, it's when I want to spell my name phonetically that Japanese typing becomes a pain. This wasn't a problem before I got married - the romanized phonetic spelling of Benjamin Rooney in Japanese is ben-ja-min ru-u-ni-i (ベンジャミン・ルーニー). Stürmer, though, is a whole new story. It needs a special phonetic character to show the "tü" sound, which doesn't exist in Japanese. So I have to type shu-te-li-ru-ma (シュティルマ), which tangles my fingers up every time.

And despite this effort, Japanese people still can't pronounce my last name, so they all just call me Benjamin.

-嵐紅