Japanese language and computers

Japanese language can be difficult to read and write for computers, because computers need all information to be in a very precise form. Computers can understand words if they are written using the English alphabet (ABCs), so Japanese words written using either hiragana or katakana symbols are hard for computers to understand. To help, people writing software programs have made special tools that can help computers understand and read the symbols used in Japanese words. This way, computers can be used to communicate in Japanese language too.