日本語 · Beginner 1(a)
Learn to type in Japanese
Home row anchors
Settle both hands on the home row: A S D F for the left, J K L ; for the right.
These are the keys you press: Romaji is typed on the Latin letters shown, and the input method turns them into 日本語.
Learning to type in Japanese
Japanese is not typed one key per character: you compose the sound of a word using Romaji IME and choose the written form you meant.
The muscle memory underneath is ordinary Latin-key typing: Romaji IME puts nothing new under your hands, and the candidate list is read rather than typed. Which is why speed in Japanese comes from knowing the spellings the input method expects rather than from finding new keys, and why it goes on improving after your hands have stopped getting faster.
The distribution is lopsided, which is the useful part. Across the 43 practice words, 51 distinct characters appear — and the single most common accounts for about 7% of every letter typed, with the top ten covering roughly 39%. Drilling the frequent ones first is where almost all of the benefit is.
The speed test and the games draw on one bank of 43 common Japanese words — 51 distinct characters in all, averaging 2.5 written units per word. The beginner course works outward from the home row in nine stages, and a drill is finished only when it has been typed cleanly three times — the default, adjustable in Settings. That repetition is the point: speed is a by-product of not making mistakes, and chasing it directly produces fast typists who then have to go back and fix everything.
Progress in Japanese looks different from progress in a one-key-per-letter language. Raw keystroke speed plateaus early, and what keeps improving is how fast you recognise the right candidate and commit it. Expect the first sessions to feel slow in a way that has nothing to do with your fingers.
- Writing system
- Han
- Keyboard layout
- Romaji IME
- Direction
- left to right
- Practice words
- 43
- Distinct characters
- 51
- Average word
- 2.5 units
- Input method
- Candidate selection
Characters that come up most in these Japanese words
- き7
- か5
- し5
- と5
- う4
- こ4
- あ3
- い3
- が3
- た3
- ち3
- な3
Counted across the 43 practice words — the ones worth recognising first.
手をホームポジションに置いて練習しますRomaji or kana — two ways to reach the same text
Japanese mixes three scripts in ordinary writing: hiragana, katakana and kanji. All three are produced through an input method, and there are two established ways to drive it.
Romaji input, which these lessons use, means typing the sound in Latin letters — "ka" produces か — and then converting to kanji where you want it. It is what most learners and a large share of native speakers use, and it requires no new keyboard.
Kana input means typing the kana directly, using a layout that puts all 50-odd syllables across the keyboard. It takes fewer keystrokes per character and takes considerably longer to learn, which is roughly the trade every direct-input method makes.
In both cases the interesting part is the conversion. You type a phrase, press space, and the software offers ways to write it; choosing correctly and quickly is most of what Japanese typing speed actually measures, and it improves with reading rather than with drills.
Questions about typing in Japanese
Where should I start with Japanese?
At the beginning of the beginner course, even if you already touch type in another language. The nine stages start on the home row and add keys outward, and the early ones are short. If Japanese is a script you have never typed, the first stage is doing more work than it looks like — it is building the map, not the speed.
How long does learning to touch type in Japanese take?
Longer than a week and shorter than you fear — and it depends far more on how often you practise than on how long each session runs. Short daily sessions beat long weekly ones by a wide margin, because what you are building is recall and recall decays between sessions. The streak counter exists for that reason.
Can I skip ahead to a later stage?
Yes, nothing is locked. It is usually a mistake, though, because each stage assumes the keys before it have stopped needing thought — and a stage practised on top of a shaky one tends to embed the shakiness rather than fix it.
Do I need a Japanese keyboard?
No. Japanese is typed through an input method, which is software: you type Latin letters and it offers the written forms. Your operating system already ships one — add Japanese in its keyboard or input settings and switch to it. The physical keyboard in front of you does not change.
Which Japanese keyboard layout do these lessons use?
Romaji IME. The 43 practice words between them use 51 distinct characters. The keyboard guide below the typing area shows the keys you actually press, which for an input method are the Latin ones already printed on them.
What will I actually be typing in Japanese?
Sequences of the keys each stage has introduced — single letters first, then pairs, then short chunks — in Han as the Romaji layout produces it, rather than transliterated into Latin letters. The point of the course is the position of a key rather than the vocabulary. The 43 common Japanese words in the practice bank are what the speed test samples and what the games pull from, once the positions stop needing thought.
Is Japanese hard to type?
Not in the way you are probably expecting. The keystrokes are Latin and already familiar; what is hard is the selection step, and that is a reading skill rather than a typing one. Expect your Japanese speed to be governed by how well you read Japanese, with a wide character inventory — 51 distinct characters appear in the practice bank alone.
Do I need an account, and is it free?
No, and it is free either way. Every lesson, drill, test and game works signed out, with your progress kept in this browser. An account adds three things only: your progress and settings follow you to another device, your streak survives clearing your browser data, and you can appear on the leaderboards under a name you choose.
Also in Japanese: the speed test and typing games.
Other languages written in Han: Mandarin Chinese.
More languages on Typelesson: Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean. Or browse all 86 by writing system.
Further reading
- Typing Japanese: romaji, kana and the conversion stepJapanese has no keyboard layout of its own. What you press to produce kana, why the conversion step is the real skill, and how the two input modes differ.
- Typing in a second scriptIf you already touch type, your hands transfer completely and your recall does not. What that gap feels like, why it closes, and how to shorten it.
- Keyboard layoutsQWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, AZERTY, QWERTZ and the non-Latin layouts — what each one changes, and whether switching is worth it.