Quote Originally Posted by Alhanelem View Post
It's not so much that they don't like you, but given it's only spoken in their country, the Japanese are quite protective of their language. If you can show them you can understand them (which is difficult without using 3rd party tools) they become a lot more open to you.
This is really what it gets down to.

It's sort of inherently awkward to talk to someone who doesn't speak the same language as you. Having lived there and speaking the language you find that they are kinda similar in real life as in the game... they sorta will brush past you and not reach out *unless* you reach out to them and speak Japanese. Then its like everything changes, then they want to sit down with you, and get to know you, because, as Alhanelem said, their language is very important to them and they are honored that you've taken the time to actually learn about them.

And yeah, they use standardized QWERTY keyboards, I believe most type things out in Romanji using the Microsoft IME.