Getting Started: How to Enable Japanese Input in Mac OS
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.