Mac OSX Japanese problem.

When you use several languages on your computer, there is a curious problem in OSX 10.13.6 High Sierra, that I haven’t experienced before. With Japanese as one of the languages selected as ‘input sources’, my Mac begins to behave in an unstable way.

The symptoms include 

very slow or no response to keyboard commands; 

unexpected delay in response

and repeated keyboard strokes when non were executed by myself. 

Sometimes the Mac stalls completely with or without the ‘wheel of death’.

It is so bizarre that at first I thought I was being hacked or some virus took over my machine. 

After some discussions with fellow macusers and research I found that it was not just my machine. Many others have this problem as well.

Apparently this issue occurs when a language which uses many accents, like French in my case, clashes with Japanese kotoeri input system (you type with Latin characters and the computer changes them into Japanese characters).

So, the solution 

is to remove either Japanese, or the other language from input sources. 

To do that, go to System Preferences > Language & Region and click/tap on Japanese/Nihongo. 

Then, click on the minus symbol below the languages side-panel. 

Then, restart the computer and it will come back to its usual stable behaviour.

If you need Japanese rather than French, try removing French. I use Japanese only occasionally, so I can’t vouch for this. But removing Japanese has worked for me.

Meanwhile, we should wait for the Apple wiz-people to sort the problem. Ahh, well.

See this article for a slightly different description of the same problem and similar solution.

How to add accents to letters without switching languages

Option key

How do you type café with the accent sign on top of the 'e'?

If you use several languages on your Mac you probably know that it is dead simple to switch between the languages (keyboard layouts): Control Command + Space for the two most recently used or Control ⌘+Option+Space to switch between more than two languages used. (You have to add language options in System Preferences.)
Important UPDATE: In current OS (July 2019, High Sierra), instead of Command key use Control+Space bar to swithc between the last two languages. To go through all the languages you use, add Option (alt) key to the combination. 

However, simply to add an accent (diacritical mark) to one or two letters in your text, you don't need to switch to French, Russian, Spanish or German.

Option key (the funny one between Control and Command) gives most commonly used diacritical signs: press Option and type 'e' to get acute accent, common in French and also used as a stress mark. The accent will appear highlighted in your document, then type 'e' or another letter that needs the accent - é, á, ó or í .

To see the available combinations open the Keyboard Viewer and press Option.

To add circumflex (Welsh tô bach – little roof) press Option and type 'i' to get the highlighted accent circumflex, then type the letter you need: ô, î, ê or â.

Tilde sign, common in Spanish, is with letter n – ñ.

Two dots (trema or umlaut) over some letters in Russian, German and other languages are with u – ü or ë.

Cedilla, the little tail attached in French to 'c' when it should be pronounced as 's', is, logically, with 'c' – press Option and type ç.

It's cleverly programmed – it won't let you put diacritics on letters with which they are not used.

Switching between language layouts can be an annoying distraction, so learning this little trick can help improve efficiency. It takes little time to memorise accent combinations and then you use them automatically, much like touch-typing.

There is an article on Wikipedia describing diacritical marks and accents, their names and uses.

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