This site describes
how to use Japanese on a Macintosh computer, particularly for people who
use a Mac predominantly in English but also want to read, write,
browse, and email in Japanese. This front page contains information on
activating Japanese support in Mac OS: start by following the
instructions below, then consult the other pages on the site for
information on specific tasks and applications: email, web browsing,
dictionary software, etc.
The instructions on this site are up to date for Mac OS 10.12
(Sierra), but you can use them with very slight changes for earlier
versions of Mac OS X. (For significantly older systems, see the "Other
Resources" page on this site.)
Today using Japanese with the Mac is relatively seamless. Mac OS
comes installed with support for reading and editing Japanese--in
documents, in email, and on the web. If you receive Japanese email in
Apple's Mail application or go to a Japanese web page in Safari, the
Japanese will probably display correctly without your doing anything
special or reading any further on this page. If this does not work
smoothly, if you want to enable additional features in these programs,
or if you want to
input Japanese text (to create documents, do
web searches, or send email in Japanese, for example), you'll need to
take some extra steps. These are described below, and on the other pages
of this site.
To enable input in Japanese (or other Asian languages), go to System
Preferences from the Apple menu, click on the blue flag icon labeled
Language & Region.
Click on the button marked with a plus sign in the lower left to add a
new language, then select Japanese from the menu and click the Add
button. You will be asked you if you would like to use Japanese as your
primary language; for now choose "Use English," unless you want the
menus and dialogs in the finder and other applications to switch to
Japanese.

If you have a trackpad, you may also want to repeat this process to
add "Traditional Chinese" or "Simplified Chinese," which will bring up a
second window allowing you to choose the "Trackpad Handwriting" option.
This will let you enter kanji characters by drawing them on the
trackpad.
The next step is to set the options for Japanese input. Click on the
"Keyboard Preferences…" button at the bottom of the Language &
Region window, which will take you directly to the Input Sources tab of
the Keyboard Preferences pane. From the menu on the left, choose
"Japanese." (If you have an older versions of MacOS, this may say
"kotoeri", which was the earlier, more poetic name of the Japanese input
method). You'll see the different Japanese input preference options.
Set them as follows to start out:
- Check the boxes for hiragana and katakana.
- Uncheck the "Live Conversion" box for now.
- Scroll down a little further in the panel (past the content shown
below) and find an option called "Predictive Candidates"; it should be
unchecked.
- Check the box that says "Show input menu in menu bar" at the bottom of the preferences pane.
If you now look at the menu bar at the very top of the screen, you
should see the icon for the input menu--it probably looks like a little
flag. You can now select Hiragana or Katakana from that menu to enter
Japanese text in almost any application. For more on how to enter
Japanese text, see the page on
Typing in Japanese elsewhere on this site.) If Hiragana or Katakana is
already
selected as the input method when you click on the input menu, you'll
get a longer menu with options specific to Japanese input, including a
help option.
Do I need a Japanese Keyboard?
Most users (including native speakers) enter Japanese by typing the
pronunciation in roman characters, so you do not need a special Japanese
keyboard. If you have a Japanese a keyboard, it has a few extra keys
you can take advantage of, as well as the option of dispensing with
roman character input and having each key map to a specific kana
character. The online Apple store now has an option that lets you select
a Japanese keyboard as an option when you buy a new Mac. If you are
using a Japanese keyboard or laptop, you can choose between the rōmaji
or kana input method in the Japanese input preferences.
To enable Japanese menus in the Finder and other applications, you
can go to System Preferences under the Apple menu, then select the icon
for the Language & Region preferences pane. Add Japanese to the list
of languages as described above, if it does not appear there already.
If you drag Japanese above English in the list, the finder and many
other applications will open next time with Japanese menus. Even if you
do not want Japanese menus, make sure Japanese appears somewhere in your
list of languages. Just having it there unlocks Japanese features in
certain software, like Japanese encoding in Apple's Mail application.
You can also set the menu language of specific applications
individually. Many (though not all) applications have menus in different
languages built in. You can activate these with a third-party
application called
Language Switcher.
Next Steps
For a guide to entering text in Japanese, see the page on Typing in
Japanese, elsewhere on this site. For an introduction to using Japanese
with different applications, see the pages on Text Editors,
Dictionaries, and Browsers. All of these are accessible from the
navigation bar at left.