How do you install the characters?? I'm willing to do it :) i just don't know how to :D

There is a thread on this forum here:
http://www.japanforum.com/forum/japa...ge-help/21099-[guide]-read-write-japanese-your-windows-xp-pc.html
on how to do it on windows XP, i don't know about vista though

Edit: Ok so the link doesn't work properly on these forums because of the square brackets in the URL, so just go to the Japanese language help part of the forum and its a sticky thread in there.

Just remember you'll need a windows XP disc, unless anybody knows how to install it without one.

Tadaima!
Ee...koko wa boku no uchi janai...
Tonikaku, konbanwa!

(Note: Not a translation)

Is it a good sign that I can read that and *almost* understand it, based entirely on watching far too many subtitled anime? Eep..

(Attempt at translation)

I'm back!
Um...here I am but no one's here...
Anyway, good evening!

*winces for the responses*

ok so there is kanji, hiragana and katakana? 3 symbol alphabets?

In a nutshell.... (hopefully your computer can see asian fonts)

Kana letters (of both hiragana and katakana) represent only one syllable.
ex. ま　　　ち　,　　マ　　　チ　　 ("ma" and "chi" in hiragana and katakana)

Hiragana is used to spell out japanese words or for connecting particles between kanji.

Katakana is used for names or foreign words that aren't from the japanese language.

Kanji is a pictograph type font, where normally each individual kanji symbol represents a single word or thing.

Romanji is easily explained as the english alphabet font. What you're reading now are romanji characters.

I'll use an example to help ya. (if you can see them on your computer)

kanji ---- hiragana ----- katakana --- romanji
本　　　　　　　　 ほん　　　　　　　　 ホン　　　　　 hon

Let me just say two things...

One: romaji is a counter-intuitive and just overall bad way to learn Japanese. I can give many reasons why romaji sucks, but I'll save us all time and just say LEARN KANA/KANJI! If you're diligent, you can learn kana in as little as two weeks. Given that, there's no reason to complain about not being able to use romaji. Even if you don't know any kanji, you can write to other Japanese beginners using just kana.

Two: STOP USING "ANATA"! Anata is used rarely by Japanese people in regular speech. It sounds out of place in 95% of the sentences made by Japanese beginners.

Seconded. 100%

1. Actually, I thought it was agreed within the first few posts that this was to be a Kana thread. Maybe the title should be changed?

2. Romaji is probably also used by those who learn to speak before they write, so don't ignorantly judge someone just by the fact they don't know kana yet.

I'd say something in kana, but this is a school computer, and it'd rather not mess around with it's settings and attempt to enable it -_-'