How to insert tab character in Text mode?

I have tried to parse a file language_data.txt, which is edited by Emacs. The different columns are separated by tab characters.

But when I opened the file, I found that each of the tab characters had been replaced by many space characters. For example:

en_US   shiphrah        02005   book reader no connection
en_US   shiphrah        02006   user reader no connection

How to insert a tab character in Text mode?

Solution 1:

C-q <tab>

C-q insert the next character as a raw character

Solution 2:

In addition to answer given: Check value of indent-tabs-mode, customize it if needed. Several hooks use it's value doing translations TAB-Blank.