Change the Japanese characters you entered on Mac
When you use a Japanese input source, you can change recently entered characters before or after they’re confirmed.
Select a different candidate
On your Mac, set up and switch to a Japanese input source.
In an app, type text, then press the Space bar until the Candidate window appears.
Select a different candidate.
For example, if you use the Hiragana input mode, you can change 鼻 (hana) to 花 (hana) by typing “hana” and pressing the Space bar until the Candidate window appears, then selecting 花 from the window.
Select a different candidate for part of a text string
You can choose a different candidate for part of a text string. For example, if you converted a character string to one with the correct reading but the wrong meaning (a homonym) and want to correct the conversion, you can select a candidate for the incorrectly converted part.
On your Mac, set up and switch to a Japanese input source.
In an app, to change one part of a text string, press the Space bar after you type the text.
Tip: You may not need to press the Space bar when you use Live Conversion.
Click the part of the text string you want to change (the parts of the text string are underlined separately).
You can also use the Right Arrow and Left Arrow keys to select a portion of the text string.
Select a candidate from the Candidate window.
For example, if you use the Hiragana input mode to type “kyouha ishani ikimasu” then you can change the いきます (ikimasu) part by pressing the Space bar, then clicking いきます (if the Candidate window doesn’t appear, press the Space bar again). Select a candidate from the Candidate window.
Change confirmed characters
On your Mac, set up and switch to a Japanese input source.
In an app, select the characters you want to correct, then press the Delete key.
For example, if you use the Hiragana input mode to enter 私が怒りました。(watashiga okorimashita.), but want to change 怒りました (okorimashita), select 怒りました, then press Delete.
Enter the correct text string, then press the Space bar to convert it.
For example, type “okurimashita” (おくりました), then press the Space bar.
Tip: You may not need to press the Space bar when you use Live Conversion.
Select a candidate from the Candidate window.
To undo a conversion, press the Kana key (かな) twice on a JIS keyboard to return to the point immediately before the conversion, or click the Input menu in the menu bar, then choose Reverse Conversion.
If you’re not using a JIS keyboard, press Control-Shift-J for the Kana key.
Change characters to hiragana, katakana, or romaji
On your Mac, set up and switch to a Japanese input source.
Do one of the following:
To change characters to hiragana and switch to the Hiragana input mode, immediately after you enter the characters, press the Kana key (かな) twice on a JIS keyboard.
For example, if you intended to enter きょうは but instead entered “kyouha” using the Romaji input mode, immediately press the Kana key twice to change “kyouha” to きょうは and switch to the Hiragana input mode.
To change characters to roman characters and switch to the Romaji input mode, immediately after you enter the characters, press the Alphanumeric key (英数) twice.
For example, if you started typing while using the Hiragana input mode but you wanted to enter roman characters, immediately press the Alphanumeric key twice to change what you entered to roman characters and switch to the Romaji input mode.
To change characters from hiragana to katakana or romaji, before you confirm the characters click the Input menu in the menu bar, then choose Transliterate to Katakana, Transliterate to Half-width Katakana, Transliterate to Romaji, or Transliterate to Full-width Romaji.
For example, enter “sakurasaku.” (さくらさく。), press the Space bar, select the part of the text you want to change, then choose a Transliterate command from the Input menu.
To change characters from katakana or romaji to hiragana, before you confirm the characters choose Transliterate to Hiragana from the Input menu in the menu bar.
If you’re not using a JIS keyboard, press Control-Shift-J for the Kana key, and press Control-Shift-Semicolon (;) for the Alphanumeric key.