Windows 10: Alt-Shift to Japanese IME randomly decides to set to Japanese language with English characters.

So, the Japanese IME pack has five modes I'm not sure why: two that use English characters Thus "Watashi wa" and three that use Japanese characters: "”. When I'm writing, I use the Alt+shift command to switch back and forth between these two languages As I use both. The problem is that sometimes I'll hit alt+shift and it switches to Japanese IME but with ENGLISH characters... thus all I'm doing is writing only in English letters Example: "Hello, I'd like to talk about the Japanese language, kore wa nihongo desu". Despite the fact that I hit "Alt+Shift" in that last sentence, it

:)

 

Japanese IME - How to have menus in English?

The default display language for the Microsoft IME is "Automatic", and occasionally it decides for whatever reason to change from English to Japanese or vice versa.
At any rate, you can correct the issue without removing any language packs via the following steps. I'm going to assume that your Windows display language is in English, but your IME is set to display in Japanese.

1. Navigate thus: Control Panel -> Region & Language -> Keyboards &
   Languages -> Change Keyboards
   
2. Highlight "Microsoft IME" under the Japanese (Japan) keyboard section of the "Installed services" list
   
3. Select "Properties"
   
4. Under the ""全股" tab, you will see an option at the bottom "メニューおよびダイアログで使用する言語" which is the IME display language option. Change this to "英語" (English) and save your changes (the buttons are in the same order as they are in the English UI, "Okay", "Cancel", "Apply", and "Help".
   

The next time you reopen the IME in the language bar, it should display in English.

 

Switching Japanese Windows with English menus

Yes, I do mean those keys. I tried just switching to Japanese keyboard, as you suggested, but those keys didn't work. Also, the selection key is normally the spacebar in Japan but I could only get IME to work with the Tab key (for those who aren't familiar with Japanese typing: you type in Roman characters, then press a selection key and it steps you through a list of options for the word you are typing in Japanese characters). Did you get the special keys to work as they do in native Japanese mode?

It may well be that I was missing something, although I did try every option I could think of. In any event, as I said, I gave in and now have Japanese Windows running with English menus and everything seems to be working perfectly.
Thanks,

Mike

 

Language support of japanese characters with Shift-JS

I have been using English, Greek and Japanese programs and files in my PC and sometimes the Japanese characters are not displayed properly. For this reason I switched the non-unicode language to Japanese in the administrative settings. The Japanese program
menus work fine now, however when I open PowerPoint, the file takes a long time to load, some English characters appear as Greek and making changes e.g. deleting a word, takes half a minute. I have the following questions:

-What's the reasoning behind this behaviour?

-What language settings should I use to display ENG, GR, JP properly everywhere, both files and program menus?

Thanks in advance