Kanatyping lets you practice Japanese kana direct input (JIS かな入力) on a normal US QWERTY keyboard. You do not need Japanese keycaps, a 106/109-key JIS board, or an OS kana IME. One physical key still outputs one kana — for example Q is た, not “type k then a.”
A JIS board prints kana on the keycaps and has a few extra keys to the right of the letter block. A US board does not. Kanatyping keeps your US hardware and maps those missing JIS keys onto keys you already have. The on-screen keyboard shows both the US letter and the kana, so you can learn the layout without buying new hardware.
The trainer matches KeyboardEvent.code — the key’s place on
the board — not the character your layout produces. If the OS is on
Dvorak or Colemak, the physical Q key is still た. Leave
macOS and Windows on a US layout. Do not switch the system IME to kana
input.
| US key | Kana |
|---|---|
| ] | む |
| Shift + ] | ー (long vowel) |
| Shift + ' | ろ |
| \ | へ |
| [ after a kana | dakuten ゛ (か → が) |
| = after a kana | handakuten ゜ (は → ぱ) |
| Shift + a kana key | small kana (っ ゃ ゅ ょ) |
That is the gap a US board has versus JIS: む, ろ, ー, and へ have no printed keycap, and dakuten / handakuten are follow-up keys instead of IME conversion.
Start in Romaji if you only know QWERTY, then switch to Kana for the same words. Use Weak keys to drill the keys you miss — there are no separate “top row / home row / bottom row” lessons. Type real JLPT N5 words, or review your own Anki deck with kana answers.
Kana input learned here transfers to Japanese typing games and tests such as e-typing.ne.jp and Sushi Da (寿司打) — those score raw kana speed, while this site drills real vocabulary as you build it.
Phone and tablet use an on-screen JIS kana keyboard. This guide is for a physical US computer keyboard.