Just curious to know who uses the input method of the kana in a grid, and flicking to get the variants. It seems to be a throwback to old mobile phones. Which do you prefer, and which is faster for an experienced typist? What do Japanese people prefer?
Edit: thanks for all the interesting replies! I’m surprised that flick was the clear winner. It was my understanding that the layout mimics older phones input, but the newer flick method is far quicker than phonetic typing with English characters. Thanks again for satisfying my curiosity.
35 comments
I’ve seen both versions being skillfully implemented by Japanese. My best friend in college used the flick-kana keyboard but my wife used the QWERTY keyboard. Probably most Japanese use the flick-kana keyboard more though. Can’t say for sure
I use flick for both ENG and JPN because I’m old.
I like the flick keyboard! It takes a bit of getting used to but I think I’ve become pretty proficient. I don’t think its any faster for *me*, but it does feel more natural for Japanese and it helps me to not associate the kana with English sounds.
from what ive seen japanese prefer flick, at least on phones. I personally use flick too for phones and qwerty for pc
I hate flick, so I use QWERTY.
Flick 100%. It feels a lot more intuitive to only have to tap once per kana as opposed to a minimum of two using qwerty
Flick is almost entirely different from old physical flip-phone input. I’d very strongly recommend you to go through agony for a week just to get used to flick input because it’s way, way, way, way faster than any other input method (Unless you can type at something like 150+wpm. Flick input can get that fast.)
Flick input by default tends to leave the old input method on, but that’s not the flick. In old type, you need to type あ 3 times to get う (or あ once and reverse key for twice). It’s more of an annoyance than an addition so I turn that off. Flick only takes one touch and short slide for EVERY letter. It’s amazing.
If you take time to think and type anyways, perhaps it’s not so much of the gain, but I’d say it’s still a plus. It’s annoying af to get used to, but believe me, you will within a week. Well, even if it took a month I’d say it’s totally worth it.
Flick input is way faster.
flick is the way. i only tend to see middle-aged people use qwerty, teenagers use flick at an astonishing speed.
Flick is waaaaaaaay faster than qwerty.
Not even Japanese and I flick for my Japanese keyboard, but I also use swipe-type in English so it feels kinda similar ig….
I used to use QWERTY but after being in Japan and seeing people use the flick, and reading an article saying you shouldn’t associate kana with romaji or English I decided to give the flick a go. It took some time to get used to it but I would never change back to QWERTY I find it faster and feel like I am able to become more fluent as well. 🙂
In Japan I think most people use the flick one, but I have seen some of my friends from school use the qwerty which surprised me.
flick is more fun ww
Are there any good Swype replacements for Japanese? It used to work really well for Japanese, but they pushed a change that horribly broke input for inflected words, and then the product got killed before they fixed it. I’ve never been able to find another keyboard with gesture input for Japanese and Chinese.
I’m probably a lot faster when typing with QWERTY but flick typing feels a lot more authentic
Definitely flick.
100% recommend using flick when learning Japanese since it will help you think in Japanese rather than constantly converting from Romaji/English.
Flick and my Japanese is bad enough that my typing skills won’t be a bottleneck
Flick makes way more sense and is really easy to learn. One you know where each “consonant” is on there, all you have to learn is which direction is which “vowel”, and then you can type fluidly.
I’m a beginner and I love flick, it helps me solidify my understanding of hiragana faster. And the learning curve isn’t bad at all.
Flick for Japanese, no question. And I’m a touch-typist in English. Have never seen a Japanese person not use flick.
wowwwww I’ve been learning japanese for so long and I’ve always used romaji, so maybe I’ll try to just go through the learning curve in order to get better at flick 😭😭😭
I think I’ve just written so many papers using romaji on my laptop that it’s weird to think in any other way. Does anyone else relate?
Of course flick
I use flick because it’s harder to make typos with larger keys and it’s easier to type with one hand
I assume most people use flick.
I must admit I tend to use qwerty though….
Flick is fun to use when typing in Japanese imo. 😀
Echoing the other answers here, flick is way faster and preferred by Japanese natives. I personally use it and after I got used to it, I would never even consider using the romaji keyboard. Plus on the off chance that you’re in Japan someday and need to type using someone’s phone, chances are they’ll use flick and if you don’t know how to use it it will be quite confusing and slow.
If you’re on iOS and want to practice using flick input, I highly recommend [this](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flickpower-japanese-flick/id1409294949) app. No idea about Android but I’m sure there are alternatives.
Personally, I use QWERTY on my laptop, so that I can use the same keyboard in Japanese and English and don’t have to learn Touch-Typing, but on my mobile, the touch screen helps a ton and I use flick.
If I have to use the smartphone, I’ll use flick over QWERTY if those are my choices. However, I’ll take voice-to-text over flick in a heartbeat.
I started texting on feature phones, which used taps instead of flicks, but the pattern remains the same and is quite intuitive.
Most Japanese people use flick, and so do I. Easier IMO. Too many missed characters with Latin input and swiping doesn’t work well.
I always use flick input on my Japanese keyboard on my phone. It’s so much faster and I can’t imagine using romaji input.
I prefer flick for Japanese. I also use flick for Korean on my phone but I do notice that I type a bit slower using it for Hangul vs. Kana
I’m early in my learning Japanese, but flick typing has really helped me integrate kana. Knowing where each will logically be even without having to see it, then typing them, is really helpful to know how to write it, imo.
I am using flick now based on the responses from here, and while still slow I can see how in the long run this makes more sense than romaji input. Thanks, all!
I use it just to get out of my comfort zone
Using qwerty is very easy, so I decided that I should keep things fun and use flicking on my phone. At first it was quite hard, but now it became a muscle memory