Using Japanese (and Chinese) on an prodominantly english system

[Rebecca Dridan <rdrid@dridan.com>]

Hi all,

I speak a little Japanese and am now learning Mandarin. I would like to
be able to read and write both languages on my computers, but leave my
systems basically in English.

I'm looking mostly to be reading and writing Japanese with a text
editor. I use vim and do not want to learn emacs. My desktop runs gnome
on sid, and the server that I ssh into to read my mail is running woody.
I'd like to use Japanese on both.

I've googled looking for anyone running the set-up that I want, but most
of the docs are out of date, or for changing a system permanently to
Japanese, or for fluent Japanese speakers (which I am not).

I've installed canna, kinput2-canna, and jvim, but I don't understand
how to use them. I've installed japanese fonts and generated all the
japanese locales I could find, although my normal LANG et al are set to
C. Which locale settings do I need to change? All of them? Is there a
setting that would allow english and japanese, or do I have to keep
switching. (I don't understand locales very well)

Is anyone able to point me to docs that explain how to go from romaji
(normal english characters) to kana and kanji? Tutorial style docs for
canna and kinput2 would be very welcome. Does anyone else have a set-up
like this and would be willing to share their expertise? Any tips for
vimrc or muttrc to allow quick switching between english and japanese?
Something extendible would be nice, so I could continue with my
Mandarin. I'd be willing to write up my own howto document once I manage
to figure it all out for myself.

Thanks,

Bec