Japanese Input

This article provides information on how to setup Japanese input on an English Ubuntu installation.

Ubuntu 18.04 and later

1. In system settings, select "Region & Language"

2. Click "Manage Installed Languages"
3. In the window labelled "Language Support", click on "Install / Remove Languages..."
4. In the "Installed Languages" window, check the checkbox beside "Japanese" and click "Apply"
5. Log out of and back into Ubuntu

6. In the "Region & Language" window, click the plus sign (+) below "Input Sources"

7. In the "Add an Input Source" window, select "Japanese",then "Japanese (Mozc)", and then "Add".
8. Select Japanese (Mozc) from the drop-down language input menu in the upper-right corner.
9. Click "Input Mode" and select "Hiragana."
10. After typing desired word, press space bar to select desired kana, kanji, or romaaji then press Enter. (Alternatively, use the function keys to convert entered word: hiragana F6, katakana F7, hankaku-katakana F8, zenkaku-romaaji F9, hankaku-romaaji F10.)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Super+Space and Shift+Super+Space are the default shortcuts to switch between input languages (e.g., English and Japanese). To set the shortcut as Alt+Shift instead, in a terminal enter the following commands:

• gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-input-source "['<Alt>Shift_L']"

  gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-input-source-backward "['<Shift>Alt_L']"

  (Note: This setting cannot be changed through the GUI because of a conflict with default GNOME shortcuts.)

106/109 Japanese Keyboards

To change the keyboard layout to a 106/109 Japanese keyboard layout with Japanese (Mozc) input:

1. Edit the mozc.xml file by entering the following command in a terminal:

   sudo gedit /usr/share/ibus/component/mozc.xml

2. Change <layout>default</layout> to <layout>jp</layout> and save.

3. Log out and back into Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 14.04

Please click here: Ubuntu 14.04