How do I type in Japanese on Android? (type Hiragana & Katakana)

You've just started studying Japanese and you want to be able to type Japanese on your phone Here's how to set that up on Android with pictures, step by step.

There are several ways to do this, I'll show you the most common/simple way to get yourself up and running, typing Japanese from your phone

The names and locations of various menus and buttons in this guide may differ slightly depending on your version of Android. I'm showing how to set up a Japanese keyboard on a Google Pixel on Android 11.

Step 1

Head to the Play Store on your phone.

Step 2

Search for "Gboard" and install it to your phone

Step 3

Swipe down from the top of your screen and tap the "settings" cog in the bottom right of the drop down menu.

Step 4

In the "search settings" at the top of your screen, type "language".

Step 5

Tap on "Languages & input".

Step 6

Tap on "Languages"

Step 7

Select "add languages".

Once it's added, it'll show in this list as 日本語（日本）the order here will determine which is your default language.

Mine is 1) English (United States) and 2) 日本語（日本）as I have Japanese set as the secondary language on my phone.

Step 8

Head back to "languages & input" by pressing the back arrow in the top left. Then, tap on "On-screen keyboard".

Step 9

Now tap on "Gboard" and then tap on "Languages", it should be the top setting

Step 10

Here we'll see the keyboard languages you have set up on your keyboard, tap on "add keyboard"

Step 11

Then press on "Japanese" if it shows up at the top, or select the "search" icon in the top right and search for "Japanese"

Step 12

Add in the keyboard types you'd like to type with.

Common ones are "12 keys" and "QWERTY".

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My favorite one (Caleb here!) and the one I use daily is the QWERTY keyboard, so I'll show you how to set that up here.

Ty, on the other hand, uses the "12 keys" keyboard. You might see it called "kana flick" as well. This is where you input the kana directly by swiping your finger on the various characters.

I'm faster on the QWERTY keyboard when it comes to Japanese, but Ty swears by the kana flick keyboard.

Feel free to experiment and find what you like more! Even natives have their preferences so there isn't a wrong answer here

Feel free to close out of the settings, you're all ready to go!

How to switch to Japanese while typing:

Now, when you go to type text anywhere on your phone you'll see a little "globe" icon in the bottom left. Tap on that icon and it'll change to Japanese!

You can see that it's worked by the text in the spacebar now saying "日本語".

You can type in Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji.

Just start entering the characters and above the letters, suggestions of what you might want to type will show up, and that's how you type in Kanji.

Here's a screenshot. What we typed is underlined in blue, the same thing in Kanji is highlighted in yellow, and the same thing in katakana is highlighted in green.

Success! You're awesome and can now type Japanese.