Japanese language and computers

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{{copy edit|date=April 2026}}

[[File:KB_Japanese.svg|thumb|A Japanese kana keyboard]]

[[File:KB_Japanese.svg|thumb|A Japanese kana keyboard]]

In relation to the '''Japanese language and computers''', many adaptation issues arise, some unique to [[Japanese language|Japanese]] and others common to [[language]]s that have a very large number of characters. The number of characters needed in order to write in English is quite small, and thus it is possible to use only one [[byte]] (2⁸=256 possible values) to encode each English character. However, the number of characters in Japanese is many more than 256 and thus cannot be encoded using a single byte; Japanese is thus encoded using two or more bytes, in a so-called "double byte" or "multi-byte" encoding. Problems that arise relate to [[transliteration]] and [[romanization]], character encoding, and input of Japanese text.

In relation to the '''Japanese language and computers''', many adaptation issues arise, some unique to [[Japanese language|Japanese]] and others common to [[language]]s that have a very large number of characters. The number of characters needed in order to write in English is quite small, and thus it is possible to use only one [[byte]] (2⁸=256 possible values) to encode each English character. However, the number of characters in Japanese is many more than 256 and thus cannot be encoded using a single byte; Japanese is thus encoded using two or more bytes, in a so-called "double byte" or "multi-byte" encoding. Problems that arise relate to [[transliteration]] and [[romanization]], character encoding, and input of Japanese text.