is a Japanese language

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 input method

Japanese input methods

Japanese input methods are the methods used to input Japanese characters on a computer.There are two main methods of inputting Japanese on computers. One is via a romanized version of Japanese called rōmaji , and the other is via keyboard keys corresponding to the Japanese kana...

 that comes standard with Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 and earlier versions of the Mac OS

Mac OS

Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

. Kotoeri (written ことえり or 言選り) literally means "word selection".

To convert kana to kanji in Mac OS X:

Here is an example of using the Kotoeri input method to enter the kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

character for "crane" or "stork". From the International menu, a user would configure Kotoeri as one of the input methods to appear on the drop-down language selector.

The user must first select the "hiragana" syllabary

Syllabary

A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. In a syllabary, there is no systematic similarity between the symbols which represent syllables with the same consonant or vowel...

 in the international menu. Then type in the pronounciation of the word (in this case, "tsuru"), and the user will see "つる". Then, the user must press the spacebar and select the appropriate kanji for the word (鶴) on the menu that appears..

Converting kana to other non-kanji representations

With some katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

or hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

text selected by highlighting it, the user may choose the "Convert to related character" option on the drop-down menu. The highlighted word is now shown underlined. Clicking on the underlined word presents a pop-up menu with four options. These are the hiragana, katakana, full-width rōmaji and half-width rōmaji equivalents of the selected word. Choosing the first option, for example, converts the selected word to the hiragana equivalent .

Converting kana to kanji

With some katakana or hiragana text selected by highlighting it, the user may choose the "Reverse conversion" option on the drop-down menu. A pop-up ｍenu appears, which provides several possible kanji homophone

Homophone

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...

s:

, or , for example.

At this point one chooses the kanji character or characters correctly representing the meaning of the desired word: 鶴.

If the file being created requires both Roman

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

 and Japanese scripts, the user should remember to revert to a Roman-alphabet keyboard layout (U.S., Canadian - CSA, French, Spanish, etc.) when Japanese text entry is complete.

See also

• Japanese input methods
  Japanese input methods
  Japanese input methods are the methods used to input Japanese characters on a computer.There are two main methods of inputting Japanese on computers. One is via a romanized version of Japanese called rōmaji , and the other is via keyboard keys corresponding to the Japanese kana...
  
  
• Cyrillization of Japanese
  Cyrillization of Japanese
  Cyrillization of Japanese is the practice of expressing Japanese sounds using Cyrillic characters. It is commonly accepted in Russia.Below is a cyrillization system for the Japanese language known as the Yevgeny Polivanov system...
  
  
• Kotoeri —Translated version from ja.wikipedia.org