Weird symbols appearing in chat, disallowing ctrl+click calling, disrupting typing

Hello,

I recently bought a new computer which came installed with vista and every so often a symbol appears in the text box where I type.

It's hard to explain but here's a screen


Sometimes the character at the beginning of the box is some sort of asian text, others it's a capital A.

I've never had this problem playing on my XP laptop and I'm thinking it has something to do with the language packs included with vista, however I've been unable to fix it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Japanese IME is installed.

Hit alt+shift to change languages. You might also have something bound to Crtl+Space inside the IME. To get at its settings, right click the taskbar --> toolbars --> language bar. Right click the thing that appears on the task bar. You should be able to find the hotkey settings on your own from there.

there are no other languages installed and no hotkeys exist, however an english one exists, which I believe is giving me trouble.

I can't remove it and no hotkeys toggle the problem.

Any other solutions?