I am learning Japanese and I also speak Korean. It has been really difficult typing as I haven’t been able to find a keyboard that has both characters.
I know that I can type Japanese using the Roman letters on my keyboard, but I feel this won’t be as helpful to me for reading. So does anyone know of anywhere I can get something like this?
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Basically no one uses a Japanese keyboard, I’ve only seen one in my life. Everyone at my school (in Japan) used a standard keyboard. For Korean you can just buy stickers to put on your keys if you need a visual cue for the layout.
if you have a mac, you could get a keyboard [cover with kana](https://kbcovers.com/product/japanese-keyboard-cover/). If you have a regular keyboard you could get a set of[ kana stickers](https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Pegatinas-teclado-japon%C3%A9s-Hiragana-transparente/dp/B000NJS3MU/ref=sr_1_7?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=2K1AXZ20CZ1NP&keywords=kana+stickers&qid=1700142320&sprefix=kona+stickers%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-7) which you put on top of your regular keyboard keys. Both of those options helped me a lot when I was learning Japanese a few years back
I saw a lot of Japanese keyboards in offices. We had both Japanese and Western keyboards.
I asked a dozens of Japanese colleagues of all ages if they used the “kana” written on the keyboard. I think just one person did. The special kana changing key can be helpful (but not necessary).
So the Japanese keyboards look cool but in practice are not necessary.
Whether or not you’re typing on a Japanese keyboard will have zero effect on your reading ability. If you’re gonna learn how to type Japanese just use a regular keyboard with an IME.
If you want to get better at reading, just read more.
Unless a large portion of your Japanese studies will be hunting and pecking for kana on a keyboard (poor use of time, imo), the keyboard really shouldn’t be much of a concern.
If it matters that much to you, you might be able to find a kana/hangul sticker or keycap set somewhere. I’ve tried searching before commenting this, but it’s pretty much always kana and rōmaji, or hangul and rōmaji.
So it’s either that or learn to touch-type in Korean since you already speak it and just stick with the kana/rōmaji keycaps. It feels more intuitive than the kana layout, to be sure.