In addition to hiragana, katakana and kanji characters, Japanese also has romaji script. Simply put, romaji expresses hiragana with the alphabet. Since the sound of the Japanese spoken language is represented with the alphabet, as long as they are familiar with the alphabet, those who know absolutely nothing about Japanese can read it. Records remain showing that the missionaries who came to Japan from Portugal in the 16th century used romaji – it is called “romaji” in Japan because it was the script of the Roman Empire. When Japan had absorbed western knowledge, becoming a modern nation in the latter half of the 19th century, there was an active movement towards replacing complicated Japanese characters with romaji. However, at present romaji is almost exclusively used for station names, or signs for place names. It is seldom used as a script for writing texts. The main reason for this seems to be that Japanese can instantly grasp the meaning of texts that contain a mixture of kanji, hiragana and katakana; conversely, sentences written only with the alphabet take time to read. Nevertheless, romaji is used even now as an easy script for non-Japanese and Japanese to communicate with. On the other hand, in line with the spread of PCs, romaji is used more than ever among Japanese. In order to write Japanese text, you input words in hiragana or romaji, and convert them into proper hiragana, katakana, or kanji. In the case of inputting hiragana, you directly type words using hiragana keys so that you do not have to convert them to hiragana. In addition, you type with fewer keystrokes, but you have to master and use 50 key positions. In comparison, romaji inputting requires only 26 keys, and can also be used for typing English texts. Therefore, it is said that the majority of Japanese are using romaji inputting. There are two systems for romaji script: Japanese style or kunreishiki that basically replaces hiragana with romaji; and hebon style that alters some characters to more closely follow English pronunciation. For instance, “two people” is written “hutari” in Japanese style, and “futari” in hebon style. “Map” is written “tizu” in Japanese style, and “chizu” in hebon style. When you look at these words only in romaji, they appear to be different words, but both correctly convert into the same Japanese word when you input either into a PC. When you write “woman” with romaji characters, it is generally written as “onna,” but when you input it, you have to type “onnna,” otherwise it is not converted correctly. “Judo” is a Japanese word which has been adopted by English, but it is not converted correctly, unless you add a “u”: “juudou.” Japanese learners often say that it is hard to understand katakana words – adopted from foreign words – when they are converted into romaji. The katakana word for “coffee” has to be inputted as “ko-hi-,” “lion” as “raion,” and “vitamin” as “bitamin.” When inputting, “k” is generally used in place of “c,” “r” instead of “l” and “b” instead of “v,” “q” and “x” are not used. If the romaji script could be standardized, as it is used for inputting into a PC, it appears it has the potential to spread all over the world as an “international Japanese script.”