How to type kana/kanji/romaji on iOS and rules on typing certain letters.
On an iPhone, there are two ways of inputting Japanese.
QWERTY Method
You can use the QWERTY keyboard method just like on your computer to type in romaji or to produce kana and kanji. The only real difference is that on your smartphone the suggested kanji appear above your keyboard instead of in a new pop-up window.
Simply click on the kanji you would like to use and continue typing! If the kanji you would like to input does not appear, you can click on the dropdown arrow for more options.
Flick Input
The second method is commonly referred to as flick input. The flick keyboard shows only the first kana (the “a” kana) in each group of sounds: あ, か, さ, た, な, は, ま, や, ら, and わ --- A, ka, sa, ta, na, ha, ma, ya, and ra. To choose the other kana of each group (“i,” “u,” “e,” and “o”) you must touch the “a” kana in that group and swipe left, up, right, or down, respectively. For example, to type “sushi,” you must swipe up on the さ button to produce す and then swipe left on that same さ button to produce し. The わ key is a little different - swiping up gives you ん, left gives you を, right gives you the long vowel mark ー, and down gives you the wave dash ～.
Here is a chart showing each basic kana group. The top row is the first characters you will see on the flick keyboard layout:
Instead of swiping, you can also just tap each key until it cycles through all the options and you reach your desired kana. However, this is much slower than the flick method and isn’t recommended. If you practice the flick method, you will get used to the pattern of swiping and learn to type very quickly!
On the flick keyboard layout, there is also a button on the bottom left of the keyboard that shows the two dakuten that can change the pronunciation of a syllable by indicating that it should be voiced. One mark looks like a quotation mark and the other a small circle. When typing on a QWERTY keyboard, you can just type “ha,” “ba” and “pa” to produce は, ば and ぱ. When using flick, input your desired kana and you can swipe left on the dakuten to pick the quotation mark one and swipe right for the circle. This same button can also change the size of the kana in the あ group and the や group. Simply tap the button after inputting one of these kana and it will shrink to the ぁ or ゃ size.
Just like in the QWERTY method, suggested kanji, kanji and kana combinations, katakana or emojis appear above your keyboard as you type. Much like on the computer, you can hit the enter key to get rid of the underline below the kana you’ve input.