Japanese emoticons for everyone

＼(＾▽＾*)いらっしゃ～いっ(*＾▽＾)／

A Westerner’s cheat sheet for Japanese emoticons. We’ve all seen them, especially on twitter. Our Japanese friends make the most intricate and adorable emoticons out of their characters and text. I’m going to show you a website that lets users with a Roman alphabet keyboard integrate Japanese words with 2byte emoticons.

(*≧▽≦)オハツでっす♪

>>>Hiroette.com<<<

Here you can learn the differences between Western and Eastern emoticons (1byte and 2byte respectively) as well as the breakdown of the Japanese characters in each. The page is categorized with brief descriptions of what each is trying to convey. Technically you don’t have to “know” Japanese to use these, but it’s helpful since some have slight variations on meanings when different kanji are used. Nonetheless, don’t be afraid to use this as a resource to add some charm and variety to your tweets, blogs, and FB statuses.