Hi Joseph, I'm glad to know that your son is interested in languages and may want to try writing Japanese. Here is a sort of rough rundown on what you need. This applies to OS 7.6 and up, but NOT OS 9.x which I am informed has more integral language ability.
When you do the installation of the OS, be sure to select for installation all the items that apply to language systems on the Mac. OS 8.5/8.6 gives you the option at one stage which allows you to specifically register the installation to focus on Japanese and miss out a long list of other languages. From memory, I think that this equips you with the input method for the Kanji. If it is not actually part of the OS, then it then comes as a part of the <Japanese Language Kit> which includes a number of Kanji and alphabetic or Roman fonts (type sets). For 8.5/8.6 there may be a specific, updated language kit. Ours was installed using the 8.5/8.6 update files for an earlier version. The font files are pretty heavy stuff, and your extensions folder will have a number of new things in it. Of course you will be sure that all these extensions are enabled. You should be aware of input method. There are two input methods in common use. The default method in the OS and kit is called Koto-eri. These input methods rely on the user typing in the phonetic structure of any word using Roman letters or <Romaji>. This raises a number of possibilities for eventual selection which are displayed in a little box that comes up on the right of the screen. The selection is based on the fact that the same phonetic structures may refer to more than one Kanji; in other words, the same sounds in different contexts will attain different meanings. And in fact, it may not be expressed in Kanji at all at all but rather in Katakana. The Japanese language uses the Kanji (originally derived from Chinese) and two phonetic syllabaries called Katakana and Hiragana. (The language derives a flexibility from this.) Anyway, as the items are typed into the text body using Romagi, the user can select the proper Japanese content from the box. This sounds slow and laborious, but Japanese people become adapt at it. These input methods are sometimes taught in courses specifically set up to teach and practice this stuff for people who are intending to work in offices and so on. The Japanese keyboard has Hiragana script beside the Roman letters as an aid to typing Hiragana. >....SNIP... also I am sure there is a Japanese version of the MacOS as well. Yes, there is of course a Japanese OS. But any Japanese application will operate in Japanese and communicate in Japanese with the user - except of course when the English OS cuts in. App menus, dialog boxes and so on will be in Japanese. But you can type Japanese into English applications by turning on koto-eri in the OS menu (it shows just left of the running apps on the right side of the screen.). The English Email client (Eudora 3.0.2) will type Japanese into the text body, and can be read by anyone using and enabling a Kanji font set. Zita wrote: >...SNIP... You'd probably also need Japanese versions of hard disk >maintence software to maintain the Japanese OS. No you don't. I used to administrate a Japanese OS Mac in a college. All my standard English utilities worked. With the possible of the iMac with diskROM I can't think of any issues that arise over language incompatabities, and the early iMac had a work-around. Someone raised the issue of more RAM being needed and used. Yes, some. But as your young son is just starting out, you can limit the number of font sets taht load. Just give him one or two so that the he has a Japanese Romaji screen font, and a Kanji set. A little filddling will get you right. I don't think Koto-eri uses very much RAM power. The extesions eat some, and this is the reason that Japanse Macs have always arrived with more stock RAM, either on the logic board or in the slots/cards. I cannot see any advantage to partitioning a disk for two languages. I neither read nor write Japanese. All my input is aural, and I believe this has hampered my speaking ability (mileage varies from person to person). So, I can definitely say that literacy in the language is an incalculable advantage. Good luck to your son. Tell him for me that Japanese is a fascinating, enjoyable language full of rich expression and cultural layers. And when he gets here some day, he'll benefit from his interests in ways that will be more than he can now imagine. PS: If you want Japanese Simple Text, I'll send it to you. SORRY that this is so long everyone, but as a language teacher, my heart goes out to children with a expressed passion for the astonishment to be found in language - the real reason for much of our computing in the first place. Lorne Lorne Spry in Sendai, 160 Km. from Tokyo: provincial adminstration/education center and seaport of 1 million people in Tohoku, the northern region of the island of Honshu, Japan -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 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