Japanese Language and PC [text]

[Characters]

There are five kind of characters in Japanese text files.
1. Kanji ( Chinese(Han) characters )：一二三木林森杉松楓桜桧椿...
2. Katakana ( hard phonetic ) ：ｱｲｳｴｵ... or アイウエオ...
3. Hiragana ( easy phonetic ) ：あいうえお...
4. Gaiji ( user-defined characters )
5. Rohmaji ( Roman characters ) ：abcABC123!"#...

In Shift-JIS code which is widely used on PC, they are classified into two classes.

1. Single-byte characters ( Hankaku(half width)-Katakana, Rohmaji )
2. Double-byte characters ( Kanji, Zenkaku(full width)-Katakana, Hiragana,Gaiji )

The first bytes of double-byte characters are 81-9F or E0-FF.
The second bytes are 40-FC.
Hankaku-Katakana is A0-DF

To identify if it is a first byte of a double-byte character or a second-byte
of a double-byte character or a single-byte character, you should scan from
the top of the text or from the point where it is obvious.

For example, a double-byte character 'ア' consists of 83 and 41.
But it does not mean that consecutive 83 and 41 always means 'ア'.
83 can be the second byte of a double-byte character and 41 is a single-byte 'A'.
So, it is not easy to find/replace/convert japanese character strings.
It is also difficust to word-wrap (actually, we do character-wrap) Japanese sentences.


[Input method]

To input Japanese text, we use very intelligent translation programs.
On DOS, translation programs are called FEP ( Front End Processor ).
On MS-Windows, they are called IME ( Input Method Editor ).
Some use MS-IME which comes with Windows.
Unfortunately, MS-IME is not very intelligent.
So there are many more intelligent IMEs like ATOK, WX3,
WP(WordPerfect)-IME and so on.
Some of them comes with Japanese word-processors.

When I input a text 'My name is Yoshinori Saigusa.', I input like this.

watashinonamaehasaigusayoshinoridesu。

On the display, I will find a Japanese text transrated and displayed like this.

私の名前はさいぐさ由典です。

Usually, you can query other candidates and make a choice. Your choice
will be registered in your dictionary and considered next time. You can
use your personal dictionary and grow it up. You may have several dictionaries
for each kind of job.

Unfortunately, my first name and my family name is not computer-friendly.
So I should correct it in a slightly time-comsuming manner, and register
it for the future.

私の名前は三枝由儀です。