Disclosed herein is a character input apparatus including: a display section having a screen capable of displaying at least characters; an operation section configured to allow a user to input at least the characters; a first character input processing section configured to perform a first character input process of causing a character string to be displayed on the screen in accordance with a predetermined notation rule; a second character input processing section configured to perform a second character input process of causing a character string to be displayed on the screen not in accordance with the predetermined notation rule; a scene determination section configured to determine a character input scene; and an input process switch control section configured to switch between the first character input process and the second character input process in accordance with the character input scene.