Installed Japanese Keyboard but unable to type in Japanese

I have found that IME questions are an almost completely impossible area to get any proper advice in. My impression is that foreign language input is handled by teams that are more or less separated from the rest of Microsoft and not a single soul at Microsoft America comprehends what IME even is. Using Windows in any multilingual, or god forbid trilingual manner or with a different language from the chosen locale of the computer is at best extremely inconvenient. I mean, why would they have a language selection option, but have all the "modern" (whatever they call them this year) native apps follow (more or less) the locale for their language setting?

I figured it out, I didn't know you have to use Alt + Backtick to enable Japanese input after choosing the Japanese keyboard.

For anyone else wondering you can keep the Japanese Keyboard selected and just use Alt + Backtick swap between your default language and Japanese vs swapping between your default language keyboard and Japanese

Hello miiiracle,

Thank you for using Microsoft products and posting to the community.

We fully understand the inconvenience the issue has caused and that the current situation can be frustrating.  If it's convenient, I'd like to know if by not being able to enter Japanese you mean that when you open an application and press a key on the keyboard to enter it, the relevant character doesn't appear? Or do you mean that when you enter the relevant characters, an error message pops up? If there is an error message, I would like you to share it with me. Or is it that you have set it to kana mode, but it still doesn't show up as a kana when you enter it?

If it's a case of unresponsive keystrokes, then I'm wondering if you've tried typing through the on-screen keyboard instead of the physical keyboard? You can test this by switching the language to Japanese, then pressing Windows + R on your keyboard to open the Run box and typing "OSK" to open the on-screen keyboard.

Also, I would like to know if you are getting no response for specific characters? Or all characters? Is it possible to enter them if you switch to romaji mode?

I look forward to your reply, we need to know certain information first in order to provide better support and it would be great if you could share a screenshot of the issue.

Sincerely

Mavis - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

When I try to type in Japanese after switching to the language, no Japanese characters display. Everything is still in English even when I use the OSK