Typing in Japanese on the Mac
This is a short guide to entering Japanese characters on a Mac. You can use these instructions with any application that supports Japanese: a text editor, email program, web browser, etc.
The instructions and screen shots are based on Mac OS 10.7 (Lion), but should apply for the most part to earlier and later versions.
Before you Start
Before you start, you will need to follow the instructions on the first page of this site, to enable the Japanese input system (called Kotoeri) on your Mac.
In addition, if you are learning Japanese input, things may be less confusing if you turn off the "Predictive candidates" option. Select Hiragana from the input menu in the upper right of the computer's menu bar, then click on the input menu again and select "Open Kotoeri preferences…" at the bottom. Once you get to Kotoeri preferences, scroll down and make sure the box next to "Predictive candidates" is unchecked.
Entering Japanese Text
Once Japanese input is enabled on your system, you can enter Japanese by typing the pronunciations on your English keyboard. Open TextEdit, the simple text processor that comes with Mac OS, select "Hiragana" from the input menu in the upper right of the menu bar, type kakikukeko in roman characters. You should see it converted to hiragana かきくけこ as you type.
You can also enter kanji compounds by typing their pronunciation. If you type genki you'll see げんき appear in the document (with an underline). Now press space bar twice, and you'll see a pop-up window showing different kanji compounds with that pronunciation. You can cycle through them by hitting space bar, shift+space bar, or the up and down arrows. If you linger on one, you will see a pop-up window with a definition for the kanji. Highlight the one you want and press return to enter it in the document and dismiss the pop up window. Press return again (or continue typing) and the underline will disappear, indicating your choice is finalized.
For beginners, the easiest way to enter Japanese is a little bit at a time: before typing each kanji compound hit return to finalize what you've entered up to that point, then enter the pronunciation and select the correct kanji as described above, hit return again to finalize your choice, and then continue.
But when you get some more experience, you can type Japanese faster by entering a whole sentence and then hitting the space bar and letting Kotoeri try to figure things out: it will convert the appropriate words to kanji, taking its best guess about which kanji to use, and leave other portions in kana. Then you can correct things that are not quite right and continue.
Below I've typed Tanakasanihaishadesu and hit space bar. Kotoeri converts this to 田中さんは医者です。(Tanaka-san is a doctor). Each segment of the sentence is underlined, and the underline beneath 田中 is darker, indicating that this is the current editing focus. If you hit space bar now, you'll get different options for "Tanaka."
You can use the left and right arrows to change the focus so you can select a part of the sentence that Kotoeri did not convert correctly, and fix it.
And what if Kotoeri did not break the segments at the right points? Suppose I did not mean "Tanaka-san wa isha desu," but "Tanaka-san haisha desu" (Tanaka-san is a dentist). I can use the right arrow key until the segment underneath さんは is highlighted, then I press option+left arrow to shorten this segment. Kotoeri realizes that はいしゃ is one word and correctly converts it to 歯医者 (dentist).
Use option+left arrow and option+right arrow to to shorten or lengthen each segment, then navigate to incorrect segments using the arrow keys and and press space bar to fix them. So if I realize that Tanaka should be written with different kanji, I can now hit left arrow to move the focus back to 田中, hit space bar again, and select a different kanji combination, and press return. When everything is right, hit return again or just continue typing, and your choices are finalized. (The underline disappears.)
Kotoeri adapts, remembering which compounds you choose and adjusting its suggestions next time. If you like, you can also turn "Show predicted candidates." back on in the Kotoeri Preferences. Kotoeri will then pop-up suggested compoundes even before you finish typing the pronunciation. So if you type genki, you'll get a window suggesting several common words that begin that way： not only 元気 (げんき) but also 現金 (げんきん) and 言及 (げんきゅう).
Tricky Kana
Kotoeri can recognize different romanization systems. For example, you can enter し by typing shi or si. You can enter しゃ by typing sha or sya. There are few kana that sometimes give folks trouble at first.
- topic particle wa (は)：Type
ha - Smal tsu (っ): you can usually double the preceding consonant as you might expect. For example, for ちょっと, type
chotto. - Small kana: You can make tsu (っ) or any kana small by preceding it with an x. For example, you can get small い by typing
xi. - In some cases you may need to type a double
nnto get ん - Example: To get ファンタジー you can type
fantaji-orfuxanntaji-
There is a full chart of rōmaji equivalents buried inside the Kotoeri help. (Thanks to Tom Gwekecke's Multilingal Mac blog for providing this info.)
Trackpad Handwriting Recognition
In recent versions of Mac OS X, you can also enter kanji characters by writing them with your finger on a trackpad. The first page of this site describe how to enable trackpad input. Now go to the input menu in the computer's top menu bar select "Show Trackpad Handwriting" Here's what it looks like:
Write the character in the center of the trackpad, and then select the character you want from the choices that appear at right, by touching the corresponding point on the right hand edge of the trackpad. The left edge of the trackpad maps to the buttons shown. For example, press the lower left area labeled 暫停手写 to get out of trackpad input mode. You can also start and stop trackpad input by pressing control-shift-space bar.
Unfortunately, since this is orginally part of the Chinese input system, it leaves a little to be desired for inputting Japanese kanji. If you use this input method extensively, switching back and forth between simplified and traditional Chinese may help when one does not work.
Other Features of Kotoeri
Kotoeri also has many other features not described here: alternate ways to enter or search for characters, the ability to register compounds not already in Kotoeri's dictionary, etc. See the Kotoeri menu screenshot at the top of this page for some other options, and note the Kotoeri help option near the middle. Kotoeri's help is available in English as well as Japanese--which you get seems to depend on whether you've set the Finder's menus to Japanese or English, as described on the first page of this site.
For in introduction to different applications that work well with Japanese, see this site's pages on Text Editors, Email, and Browsers, accessible from the navigation bar at left.