[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

How do Japanese keyboards work? Are there 10,000 keys? Seriously 8-)

[deport]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Japanese.svg

[AmericanInTokyo]

About exactly as many keys as on an English language PC keyboard, However, each small key has a small Japanese character (along with the ABC alphabet letter, slight below and to the right of it to be exact), which is a phonetic sound. Your word processing must be in the Japanese language mode rather than English (and easy setting by one of the keys). Combining the phonetics, for example "bei"　米, with "koku"　国, you get "beikoku"　米国, which is Japanese for "America"--then with a drop down dialogue box with tens if not hundreds of Chinese character combinations to choose from (you have to be able to read these approximate 2000 "kanji" to begin with), you make you selection and enter the appropriate word. It actually can be fast when you get good at it.

[USS Alaska]

How do Japanese keyboards work? Are there 10,000 keys? Seriously 8-)

Little people with loads of tiny pens, I said pens not with an i.