I have three crayfish as pets.

kanji hiragana romaji english
私　　 わたし　　 watashi Me
先生　 せんせい　 sensei Teacher
友達　 ともだち tomodachi friend
が が ga (possessive)
は は ha (emphasis topic marker particle)
匹 ひつ hiki (counter for animals)
三 さん san 3
の の no (posesive)
ザリガニ ざりがに zarigani crayfish
を を wo (subject of causative expression)
飼って　　かって katte raise
います います imasu exist, be (living thing)

私は3匹のザリガニを飼っています。
watashi ha 3 hiki no zarigani wo katte imasu .
I have three crayfish as pets.
I have three of them are keeping a crayfish

http://lang-8.com/journal/54234
http://www.iknow.co.jp/lists/36383/build
http://www.autopenhosting.org/unicode/type-Japanese.html
http://www.romaji.org/

To type Japanese text in ubuntu, install SCIM for Japanese (System > Administration > Language Support), Make sure to check Enable Complex Characters restart comp, open gedit, right-click and choose Input Methods > SCIM Input method, click on the keyboard icon at the system tray and pick Japanese ( Anthy ). Start typing the romaji, to get kanji, press space at the end, press enter for hiragana/katakana.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JapaneseInputHowToInBreezy

http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~apricots/scim-anthy/howto.html
add these to ~/.il8n to /etc/sysconfig/i18n start SCIM automatically
GTK_IM_MODULE=scim
QT_IM_MODULE=scim
XIM_PROGRAM="scim -d"
XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM

type Ctrl+Space to switch between languages