Japanese input method

10 replies [Last post]
Connochaetes

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 12/13/2017

In April 2020, Masaru Suzuqi wrote:
> BTW, I noticed Linux's converting function hiragana to kanji works great, or rather, normal. […] I tried to convert them as a full sentence and it did not make a even single mistake.

Wow. What do you use?
I use ibus-anthy, with default settings I think, and when I typed "korehanandesuka", its first offer was これは何ですか (correct), but when I typed the same with a full stop at the end, it was これんです。 (wrong), and for "watasihayasaigasukidesu." it was 私は野菜が好きで。 (wrong). I must have done something wrong.

Also, does ibus-anthy automatically remember my candidate choices and increase the chosen candidates' score? Can such "automatic learning" (i.e. adjusting of scores) be toggled on/off? Can everything be reset to factory default easily?

Lastly, something annoying about ibus-anthy when changing from other keyboard layouts:
When I switch to ibus-anthy from ibus-hangul (i.e. another QWERTY layout), the key between T and U acts as a Y (や/ゆ/よ), but when I switch to ibus-anthy from German (i.e. a QWERTZ layout), the key between T and U acts as a Z (e.g. ざ). So ibus-anthy is neither QWERTY not QWERTZ, but simply inherits this from the last used layout, which is confusing when your other layouts are not either all QWERTY or all QWERTZ.
Even worse, when I switch to ibus-anthy from "Russian (phonetic)", nothing changes and I'm still writing Cyrillic!
Perhaps I should write a bug report.

By the way, ibus-hangul, having a much easier job than what's needed for Japanese, works great, except I think my custom key setting for Hang→Hani conversion and for Hang↔Latn never worked.

Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Offline
Joined: 06/06/2018

When I was writing that, I had merely tried 3 times to see the accuracy of conversion with a full sentence. Somehow I tend to criticize Linux so I was thinking then that I should sometimes praise something of Linux then I found it. Then I did it. But after I posted it, it started to make a mistake, then I wondered how current iOS actually was, tried it, and iOS made some correct conversions with full sentence. For a short word convert, it is still quite stupid but the accuracy might be nearly equal.

I use Mozc and seem to use Fcitx, too. I did not know what the ibus-anthy then tried to activate ibus and a pop-up appeared that says "ibus is not running yet, do you want to run it?" I know it could mess up my language setting again so answered "no".
I always have difficulty with setting of it after fresh install. I take 30 min to 1 hour to be able to type Japanese, really. So I do not know exactly the correct (current) setting. I want to try that ibus-anthy you say but I am afraid of messing up the setting again. On the contrary, I would like to ask you how to set it. So...

> Also, does ibus-anthy automatically remember my candidate choices and increase the chosen candidates' score?

I don't know.

> Can such "automatic learning" (i.e. adjusting of scores) be toggled on/off?

I don't know.

> Can everything be reset to factory default easily?

I think it is possible. I have done it. But I don't want to run ibus so I cannot confirm, though.

> Perhaps I should write a bug report.

It seems so.

Connochaetes

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 12/13/2017

> I always have difficulty with setting of it after fresh install. I take 30 min to 1 hour to be able to type Japanese, really. So I do not know exactly the correct (current) setting. […] I would like to ask you how to set it.

As posted here:

  1. $ apt install ibus-anthy (or "ibus-hangul", etc. You can use "apt search ibus-" to get a list of what's available)
  2. Log out.
  3. Log in.
  4. ibus-setup
  5. Find and add newly installed input method(s).
  6. Log out.
  7. Log in.
  8. Done!

How to use it:
While holding down the "super" key (which is usually the key that comes with a Windows logo, although regular Trisquel's keyboard menu lets you change this easily), press and release the Space key. This should show the list of enabled input methods in the middle of the screen, represented by their icons. (I don't know how it works with Orca.) Until you release the super key, each press of Space cycles through the list. Upon release of the super key, the selected input method will be activated and the list will disappear. If the list won't appear, try ibus-daemon, log out, log in.
Regular Trisquel additionally has a keyboard settings menu with a "layout" tab that Trisquel Mini doesn't have. But I don't think the layout tab helps with CJK input in normal cases. Maybe it could be used to somehow work around the Y/Z issue I described in my thread starter.

calher

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 06/19/2015

I use Mozc.

--
Caleb Herbert
KE0VVT
(816) 892-9669
https://bluehome.net/csh

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Joined: 07/24/2010

Can everything be reset to factory default easily?

Removing ~/.config/ibus (that is the "ibus" folder in the hidden folder ".config" in your home folder) should do it.

Connochaetes

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 12/13/2017

Thanks, good to know.
I assume that would reset all ibus, not just e.g. ibus-anthy.
At the moment ~/.config/ibus only has one folder with one short file in it. I guess it has not "learned" anything about my candidate choices.

Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Offline
Joined: 06/06/2018

We take 6 years of elementary school and reading manga (manga works for kids have rubi/phonetic spelling) to learn basic Chinese characters.
Each Chinese character usually has two or three pronunciations. And we do not use space for writing. Chinese characters usually functions as space or some kind of punctuation marks. Foreigners master Japanese writing must be kind of sheer madness unless you are Chinese. We can communicate by writing Chinese characters even if we do not know Chinese/Japanese each other. I feel multilinguals's brains something differ from of normal guys like me. I just took another 45 minutes to the setting. I wonder how about other language setting. Is that as much as difficult/troublesome to type Cyrillic or Hangle? I have not had this trouble with at least Windows, iOS, Mac, Android.

calher

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 06/19/2015

10.5.2020 11:23, name at domain пишет:
> Is that as much as difficult/troublesome to type Cyrillic or Hangle? I
> have not had this trouble with at least Windows, iOS, Mac, Android.

No. I have many input methods in my IBus menu. One of them is Mozc for
Japanese. Another is the standard Russian keyboard layout. Another is
the standard Israeli Hebrew layout. It takes little effort to learn the
location of the letters on the keys.

--
Caleb Herbert
KE0VVT
(816) 892-9669
https://bluehome.net/csh

Masaru Suzuqi -under review-
Offline
Joined: 06/06/2018

It seems that the correct setting differs from the previous one every time I install Trisquel. Maybe I would not use ibus until the end of my life. It always does not work for me like the router.

Connochaetes

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 12/13/2017

> I wonder how about other language setting. Is that as much as difficult/troublesome to type Cyrillic or Hangle?

I have replied at length over at the troll lounge, as what I've written is only very marginally related to Trisquel [EDIT:] not entirely related to software freedom.

Connochaetes

I am a member!

Offline
Joined: 12/13/2017

Everyone, thank you for your replies. Looks like I should try Mozc.

After writing here, I noticed that Tails, which has pre-enabled layouts/IMEs for several languages (English-US; Pinyin for simplified Chinese; Japanese; Korean; Unikey for Vietnamese; Chewing for traditional Chinese – I haven't figured out how to use the last two but don't need them anyway) has recently switched from Anthy to Mozc as their default IME for Japanese.
From Tails's bug page about Anthy: "the accuracy of the conversion of Anthy to Kanji is so bad that the amount of
kanji that can be converted is small, so it is useless"
and "I’ve never seen or heard of anyone who likes Anthy. Any Japanese user would be happy to replace Anthy with Mozc."