Give us our hiragana

There is a bug that currently locks all clients except the Japanese out of accessing Japanese input.

Any plans on unlocking access to this type of input? We still see your language bar pop up time to time, I am curious as to why this was arbitrarily removed.

It's not a bug. It's by design. Japanese input controls are disabled in the NA client because SE didn't license the IME software they used in PS2 development outside of Japan. They considered it not to be worth the cost given the number of people in the US who can speak Japanese fluently and play this game.

There are ways of working around the restriction, technically, but they are unsupported and more or less against the user agreement.

Hello,

Thank you for reporting your concern regarding Japanese input for Final Fantasy XI on applicable clients. Currently, there are no official plans announced to implement this. However, we're going to move this to General Discussion so we can receive some additional feedback.

Thank you,
SQUARE ENIX Moderator

what is hiragana ? i am a bit confused what you want done.

It is a writing system based on syllables.

Here is an example of a Hiragana chart.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

It's not a bug. It's by design. Japanese input controls are disabled in the NA client because SE didn't license the IME software they used in PS2 development outside of Japan. They considered it not to be worth the cost given the number of people in the US who can speak Japanese fluently and play this game.

There are ways of working around the restriction, technically, but they are unsupported and more or less against the user agreement.

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please stop repeating this silly and false explanation. Any developer can use the microsoft IME. it is available by default in all current versions of windows. One does not need any special licensing to use this. the license agreement for the ms ime is between MS and the end user, not the developer.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

It's not a bug. It's by design. Japanese input controls are disabled in the NA client because SE didn't license the IME software they used in PS2 development outside of Japan. They considered it not to be worth the cost given the number of people in the US who can speak Japanese fluently and play this game.

There are ways of working around the restriction, technically, but they are unsupported and more or less against the user agreement.

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Originally Posted by Xilk

please stop repeating this silly and false explanation. Any developer can use the microsoft IME. it is available by default in all current versions of windows. One does not need any special licensing to use this. the license agreement for the ms ime is between MS and the end user, not the developer.

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PS2 limitation!

If you can speak Japanese, why not romanize it? Pretty sure some Japanese players can easily comprehend what you want to get through to them.

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Originally Posted by Andylynn

If you can speak Japanese, why not romanize it? Pretty sure some Japanese players can easily comprehend what you want to get through to them.

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Because it sets up the red flag that your a foreigner and thus should be ignored.

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Originally Posted by Xilk

please stop repeating this silly and false explanation. Any developer can use the microsoft IME. it is available by default in all current versions of windows. One does not need any special licensing to use this. the license agreement for the ms ime is between MS and the end user, not the developer.

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it's not silly, nor is it false. They weren't going to use two different systems for the different platforms. When are you going to realize that the PC version is just the PS2 version copied over with the minimum amount of work needed to make it function on the PC?

The only other rational explanation is "SE doesn't want people who can't speak japanese using japanese characters in spam shouts." Which may be rational, but not true.

If you use third party programs to enable the Windows IME, the text is not being sent directly to FFXI. it's being handled by FFXI, it's being inputted into the IME tool in the third party program and being sent to FFXI from there. In other words, it's just bypassing FFXI's system for it.

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Originally Posted by Ashvrei

Hello,

Thank you for reporting your concern regarding Japanese input for Final Fantasy XI on applicable clients. Currently, there are no official plans announced to implement this. However, we're going to move this to General Discussion so we can receive some additional feedback.

Thank you,
SQUARE ENIX Moderator

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Thank you kindly, and thank you everyone for your comments.

I am the only native English speaker in my linkshell. While I agree I could romanize everything, it is still difficult for some of my friends to understand what I am saying. Sometimes there is a kanji required, and romanization does not help that.

When I originally posted I must admit that I overlooked how the game was developed on PS2 first, at least if I am not mistaken.
Was it Sony who developed the IME for PS2, or Square-Enix? Or did Square-Enix have a third party (chuckles) develop the IME for use in the japanese version due to it being the initial release?

Also please remember that we all don't know why it was removed, try to be civil :)

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Sometimes there is a kanji required, and romanization does not help that.

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There are terms in kanji that are unpronounceable? Isn't "Romanji" or romanization simply a phonetic spelling of what a japanese word sounds like when spoken?

The IME tech used for the PS2 was developed by a third party, if it was from Sony I don't think it would have been a problem.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

There are terms in kanji that are unpronounceable? Isn't "Romanji" or romanization simply a phonetic spelling of what a japanese word sounds like when spoken?

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I doesn't matter because jps rarely respond to anything but moon runes.

Wait, are we talking PS2/360 client or Windows Client? My friend loves his moonspeak and sets his keyboard to JP in Windows. I'm pretty sure he was typing into FFXI with his Hiragana the same way.

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Originally Posted by Karumac

Wait, are we talking PS2/360 client or Windows Client? My friend loves his moonspeak and sets his keyboard to JP in Windows. I'm pretty sure he was typing into FFXI with his Hiragana the same way.

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You need a third party program to make it work. e.g. against terms of service.

could we stop calling it moon speak or other things other then what it really is? It is the Japanese language, please stop being disrespectful.

I dont/cant speak Japanese, but would love to see this an option, but like others have said, the IME was not licensed to the US copy of FFXI and it the main reason why we dont have the option.

Should be made available to windows users at the very least, I feel that it was never fixed due to creating a gap between PS2/Xbox and PC players.

If you go into any program with natural input or another IME selected you can enter whatever text your computer supports. You can even do it in notepad, PSO, and most importantly Final Fantasy 14.

FFXI supports hiragana obviously, so if we are unable to enter this text from our client that means the groundwork for accessing it was gutted from the code. This has nothing to do with IME, MS, Sony, or any other company. In my opinion this was done to protect consoles from being outdated.

SE has stated a million times over that they are strongly commited to PC and Console having the exact same capabilities. Remember forced full screen for five or so years?

Any gap creates the "Well, you CAN play it on Xbox but it doesn't have _______" problem, and I highly doubt that looks good for a company to license it's product to 3 platforms and leave functionality out of two.

Also you need Kanji when two words have the same meaning. You would be surprised.

separating the character input system between region is the most silly thing i've ever seen...

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FFXI supports hiragana obviously, so if we are unable to enter this text from our client that means the groundwork for accessing it was gutted from the code.

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It wasn't exactly "gutted", more just "turned off." The code for it exists in all clients, it's just disabled internally. Some people found a way to re-enable it with third party programs, but since that's against the rules, it's fight club, don't talk about it.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

It wasn't exactly "gutted", more just "turned off." The code for it exists in all clients, it's just disabled internally. Some people found a way to re-enable it with third party programs, but since that's against the rules, it's fight club, don't talk about it.

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You have me curious if PS2/Xbox releases contain the dictionaries or at least the functionality to access them. In that case you are right, it would just be a matter of flipping a switch and sending a couple small dictionary files to the system.

Also I should have named the thread "Give us our kaomoji" :(

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

could we stop calling it moon speak or other things other then what it really is? It is the Japanese language, please stop being disrespectful.

I dont/cant speak Japanese, but would love to see this an option, but like others have said, the IME was not licensed to the US copy of FFXI and it the main reason why we dont have the option.

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JP onry FFXI is japanese only game I could go on and on about the many ways in which they started it.

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Originally Posted by Mrbeansman

JP onry FFXI is japanese only game I could go on and on about the many ways in which they started it.

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All of which is irrelevant to this thread but we appreciate your concern. I can see how this could trouble you greatly, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Originally Posted by Didgist

All of which is irrelevant to this thread but we appreciate your concern. I can see how this could trouble you greatly, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Someone offered a solution and I responded to them and told them why it was pointless.

I once asked a Japanese person about how well they actually can read Japanese written in our alphabet. He didn't quite tell how hard, but he said it is easiest for them with kanji, then hiragana, then katakana, then our alphabet. So trying to communicate with them in Japanese with our alphabet is worse than writing everything in katakana while speaking with them, which I'd assume would be hard to read.

I'd almost expect them to be better at reading English in our alphabet than Japanese.

Is this issue still in XIV btw? Or did they improve the game so that you can speak between language barriers?

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Originally Posted by Didgist

You have me curious if PS2/Xbox releases contain the dictionaries or at least the functionality to access them. In that case you are right, it would just be a matter of flipping a switch and sending a couple small dictionary files to the system.

Also I should have named the thread "Give us our kaomoji" :(

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I'm not sure what yiou're trying to say, but all versions have a japanese character set, otherwise you wouldn't be able to see what the japanese are saying. This is only about input, which has nothing to do with dictionaries. They can almost literally flip a switch and turn it on (it's a little more involved than that, it would require a patch, but you get the idea). All versions of the game have the text for all languages' items, dialogue, interface text, etc. in the data files.

I think that allowing all users to use whichever alphabet they see fit is the right thing to do

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Originally Posted by Andylynn

If you can speak Japanese, why not romanize it? Pretty sure some Japanese players can easily comprehend what you want to get through to them.

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1. Romaji is difficult to read.
2. Most Japanese are use to reading Japanese, not Japanese in English.
3. They think you're speaking English, not Japanese.
4. lolgaijain (foreigner)

Ah, well, here's a simple sentence to hopefully help make it clear why people want access to the Japanese IME.

With Kanji: 僕の名前はダレルです。
Hiragana Only: ぼくのなまえはだれるです。
Katakana Only: ボクノナマエハダレルデス。
Romaji Only: boku no namae wa dareru desu.

僕(boku) means I, and 名前(namae) means name. Seeing the kanji makes it much quicker and easier to read and understand the sentence. Hiragana is second best, since hiragana is used all the time and is therefore well known. Katakana is okay, but I personally hate it because it's not as common and is mostly used for foreign words (like my name up there).

Think of Kanji as spaces or capitalization of letters. If we had our sentences run into one another, it would be difficult to read. Kanji helps differentiate words' beginnings and ends.

Also, there are a lot of words that have the same reading but mean completely different things. For example:

帰る(kaeru) - To return
変える(kaeru) - To change

As for romaji, well, just glancing at it, it could be English or it could be Japanese. Most Japanese, even though they have taken English in school, do not feel comfortable enough with reading English. Therefore, if they think it's English, they will ignore it.

The whole point of FFXI (and therefore the reason for this thread) is the ability to communicate and play with people around the world. All the servers allow for all languages and all regions. The problem is, not all regions can properly communicate with one another because of the restrictions the company placed upon us. For the last nine years, the game has been a one way street; Japanese can communicate with us (if they want to), but we cannot communicate back (even if we want to).

I understand that the Japanese game cost a bit more because of the IME. However, now that the game only costs $9.99 for the entire game via Ultimate Collection. It no longer costs $50.00 just for the game plus Zilart (like I payed back when I got it XD!). Why can't we add an additional fee to have access to the Japanese IME provided we actually want it?

Please Square Enix, quit leaving us in the dark on this. There are many people very interested in this topic. I'm sick of being outcasted by people because I cannot speak in their language because of your restrictions. If you're not going to give us the IME, then I ask for at least a very in depth explanation why, please.

There is nothing to be left in the dark about, it was said long ago, hell when the game came out I think.....

SE did not pay for the licensing of the IME for PS2, and of course because of their "all play equally" thing, they did not allow it on the PC version or 360 version. We never got the option because SE never wanted to play for it for the PS2 version. plus if you really want it, like other things SE left out, there are "other" ways to get Japanese into your FFXI.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

There is nothing to be left in the dark about, it was said long ago, hell when the game came out I think.....

SE did not pay for the licensing of the IME for PS2, and of course because of their "all play equally" thing, they did not allow it on the PC version or 360 version. We never got the option because SE never wanted to play for it for the PS2 version. plus if you really want it, like other things SE left out, there are "other" ways to get Japanese into your FFXI.

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I'm not big into playing with the illegal windower and its plugins, thank you.

I'm also not a fan of having to buy the Japanese version of the game either.

I understand that they did not purchase the IME for PS2 for nonJapanese, however, what I'm wanting to know is, if we are now willing to pay to have it added, then what's the problem? If it will cost far too much (even after nine years) for far too little pay from players, then I understand. But what I want to hear from Square Enix themselves is if we'll always be shafted and if we will, why we cannot work something out together to make the game more accessible and friendly for everyone.

To be honest, because of this game, a lot of us North American players have grown some great dislike for Japan and its people. It's rude to be ignored and you know what? Japanese players will still frequently ignore the auto-translate.

Being refused IME from the Japanese company and then being refused from group activities from the Japanese playerbase leaves for some soreness. It's a shame and I'd like to make the tension between everyone diffuse.

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Originally Posted by Xilk

please stop repeating this silly and false explanation. Any developer can use the microsoft IME. it is available by default in all current versions of windows. One does not need any special licensing to use this. the license agreement for the ms ime is between MS and the end user, not the developer.

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PS2 version uses the ATOK IME. SE wants the console version to have the same capability as the PC version, or vice versa, so they don't let the game use the Microsoft IME in regions that the console version doesn't have an IME. An ATOK license is about $60 per user, and accidentally triggering it would generate a lot of tech support calls from people that don't know how to use it, or the keystrokes to toggle it.

Hiragana is one of the three forms of Japanese text. You can type Roman letters on JP FFXI, but can't type Japanese text on non-Japanese FFXI.

We petitioned for it in 2003 at NA FFXI launch.and some SE employees explained it on FFXIOnline.com shortly afterward. Johnnyram started the petition.

I fully support the need for us Japanese-literates to be able to legitimately type in Japanese. I know there's a long history as to why it hasn't been allowed us, but it is a continuing serious problem. I only play on PC, so the PS2 thing doesn't really affect me, but I would pay to use the legit. IME

For those who say just use romaji, even if the Japanese were willing to attempt to read it, it would be similar to having to read English in kana (I know the example is shot because katakana is made for foreign words so i'll expect to be reading an English word) I can read it, but it'll take a little longer
For those who say to use the "other forms" there's always the risk that a GM notices and is feeling strict that day.
For those who say use the JP client, My (and I'm sure many other JP-literates) Japanese is decent enough for a conversation, not to play an entire game in, particularly such a richly RPG one like this

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Originally Posted by Laciante

For those who say use the JP client, My (and I'm sure many other JP-literates) Japanese is decent enough for a conversation, not to play an entire game in, particularly such a richly RPG one like this

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This. I had forgotten about having to read the entire game in Japanese, but I would struggle with that as well.

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Originally Posted by bungiefan

PS2 version uses the ATOK IME. SE wants the console version to have the same capability as the PC version, or vice versa, so they don't let the game use the Microsoft IME in regions that the console version doesn't have an IME. An ATOK license is about $60 per user, and accidentally triggering it would generate a lot of tech support calls from people that don't know how to use it, or the keystrokes to toggle it.

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I'm not sure if I'd be willing to pay $60 for the Japanese IME, but I would be willing to pay $30.
If the community had always been very welcoming of me in my attempts to communicate with romaji and the auto-translator, I would be much more willing to pay $60 to make their lives easier. But for now, I would like to speak in a language I at least know the basics to.

Another question is, if Square Enix knew that they would never release the Japanese IME to anyone outside of the Japanese region, then why did they allow all regions to play on the same servers? Did they honestly think the auto-translator would solve everyone's problems? They are Japanese themselves; did they not find the auto-translator cumbersome when using it? (This is often the excuse I hear about Japanese not using it.) Clearly communication would be an issue from the start, yet it seems it wasn't well thought out.

Add to the fact that we're approaching the maximum auto-translate capacity. And also add that generally it's only the English player base that uses it.

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I'm not sure if I'd be willing to pay $60 for the Japanese IME, but I would be willing to pay $30.

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You don't pay that fee, SE does- based on the number of people they expect to be licensing the game to when they released it (not at this time). Now, i'm sure there are bulk rates for larger numbers, because the game would have cost a lot more if it was really $60 per user, even just in japan.

It's not just the cost of the IME, it's the cost of answering tech support calls for people that accidentally hit the keystroke to change to Japanese text input and get stuck typing kana and kanji with no understanding of what they even did by accident. The manual for the IME in the Japanese PS2 launch version of FFXI is something like 10 pages, and Japanese is a more compact written language. It's also hard to get some customers to read a manual nowadays, and the instructions assume some knowledge of how Japanese works and is romanized. It will cost SE a lot to support it, in English, German, and French, for a feature that won't get a lot of legitimate use, compared to accidental use.

They'd also be cutting out the Xbox 360 and PS2 users if they allowed the MS IME, but didn't pay for the ATOK license on consoles.

The solution they offer is to do a dual install of the Japanese and native clients you use, and switch to the Japanese one when you need that communication. Of course, I haven't been able to get a simultaneous dual install working since WotG released...

At least the PC discs have no copy protection. You could always borrow the discs from someone with the Japanese installer.

Auto-translate wasn't so discrimated against before they added the colored parentheses around it.

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Originally Posted by Andylynn

If you can speak Japanese, why not romanize it? Pretty sure some Japanese players can easily comprehend what you want to get through to them.

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Not really. I used to get yelled at a lot for trying to use romaji. The reasoning was that they couldn't understand me.

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Originally Posted by bungiefan

The solution they offer is to do a dual install of the Japanese and native clients you use, and switch to the Japanese one when you need that communication. Of course, I haven't been able to get a simultaneous dual install working since WotG released...

At least the PC discs have no copy protection. You could always borrow the discs from someone with the Japanese installer.

Auto-translate wasn't so discrimated against before they added the colored parentheses around it.

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I didn't know they offered a dual client. If I could find one that functioned properly and was released by Square Enix, that would work fabulously and be fine with me.

I don't know anyone with a Japanese PC disc to borrow from.

The auto-translator wasn't discriminated against? I see. That's interesting to know.

No dual client, I meant you install both Japanese and American/European FFXI and load whichever one you need at the time. Native language for missions/quests, and Japanese one for party communication. You used to be able to have both installed and working, but now it complains about registry errors for the one you installed first.

When they first added the tab-autocomplete/translation, it didn't have the colored marks on either side of the phrase, so it was hard to tell if someone was using the translator. The JP playes complained about this and the translator phrases got marked. This was because they thought you were fluent in the language without the markings, and then if they didn't use the translator or used Japanese text that wasn't in it, they expected you to understand them, and then you wouldn't and the party would suffer. They wanted people to not be able to fake the ability to understand Japanese, however it's hard for us to prove our knowledge if we aren't using the Japanese version to have the ability to respond in their written text manually, even if we can read it.

I can read a bit more Japanese than I even know how to type, but if I had regular access to the IME in-game, I'd have more chance to practice and get better with the language.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

There are terms in kanji that are unpronounceable? Isn't "Romanji" or romanization simply a phonetic spelling of what a japanese word sounds like when spoken?

The IME tech used for the PS2 was developed by a third party, if it was from Sony I don't think it would have been a problem.

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Yes but the problem comes with many words that have the same sound, and you only know what word is when u see it on kanji, an example for this kind of words are:

Rain - Ame
Candy - Ame

Bridge - Hashi (橋)
Chopsticks - Hashi (箸)
Border - Hashi (端)

Write down (written document) - Kaki (下記)
Summer - Kaki (夏期)
Flowerpot - Kaki (花器)

I know this is just an example and im sure many people who speaks fluenty have this kind of issues when speaking to a japanese..

I agree. A lot of people in Japan would also like to try to play in English for fun or for studying, but this is made impossible by the fact you can't type in Japanese.

It's also impossible to type European characters on a JP version, although it's possible on the USA and Euro versions. While this is not a big problem, I don't see why the game should block someone from typing "ü" etc.

Also, it would be nice to make all languages available to all versions. EU version has 3+ languages when JP and USA versions have only one. Unfair...

SE would only sell more copies of the game if they allowed it, so why have these limitations?

At this point, it seems like we're being allowed to speculate all we like on the issue without official comment. Typing romaji is possible for Japanese players, many of them do it when communicating with me despite repeated requests that they keep their text to Japanese characters. I think they think they're being polite when they do it, but I'm not sure. One Japanese player felt there wasn't a difference to typing in either text style, that communication was still possible. I can see where he was coming from, but I think it's as confusing as typing in German, French or Spanish without the appropriate tittle with a letter.

For those unfamiliar, but curious, some elaborations:

English — Typical Japanese form — Romaji

Table — テーブル — te-buru
Playing — 遊んでいる — asondeiru
I — 私 — watashi
Difficult — 難しい — muzukashii
Please teach me — 教えてくれ — oshietekure
I want to write in kanji. — 私は漢字で書きたいんです。 — watashi ha kanji de kakitai ndesu

Romaji is almost twice as many characters to get through, so sentences can wind up being much longer. Even words foreign to Japan written in kana, then romanized. "Final Fantasy" itself for example: ファイナルファンタジー fainarufantaji-

Venrymel — ヴェンリメル — venrimeru
McDonald's — ミカドナルドス — mikadonarudosu

Rather interestingly, it's much easier to read a sentence written with kanji than with kana alone, let alone romaji (ローマ字 - which literally means "roman lettering"). One friend laughed with me over how difficult it is to read a sentence written using only hiragana. 私は漢字で書きたいんです。 versus　わたしはかんじでかきたいんです。 It can be like reading a number that is in the millions without commas to help you recognize it.

As others have mentioned, some kanji have multiple readings/pronunciations and pronunciations that are represented with different kanji. した and 下, both are "shita", but the kanji makes it clear that you mean "under" and not "did". (This is an easy, but poor example as context helps differentiate.) Really, it's very similar to English homonyms and heteronyms. Knowing the difference between a tear in a piece of paper and a tear falling down your cheek. "Kanji" itself can mean the ideograms or one's emotions; 漢字 or 感じ.