Python 3+ Is It Possible to Replace if in and elif in Using a Switcher

I know how to use a dictionary as a switcher in Python. I'm not sure how to use one for my specific case. I think I will just need to use if, elif, and else but hopefully I am proved wrong by the community :)

I want to make a find/replace function for certain characters in strings. The string is at least one sentence but usually more and comprised of many words.

Basically what I am doing is the following:

if non-breaking hyphen in string:  # string is a sentence with many words
  replace non-breaking hyphen with dash

elif en dash in string:
  replace en dash with dash

elif em dash in string:
  replace em dash with dash

elif non-breaking space in string:
  replace non-breaking space with space

.... and so forth

The only thing I can think of is splitting the string apart into separate sub-strings and then looping through them then the dictionary switcher would work. But this would obviously add a lot of extra processing time and the purpose of using a dictionary switcher is to save time.

I could not find anything on this specific topic searching everywhere.

Is there a way to use a switcher in Python using if in and elif in?

Here's the str.translate solution

replacements = {
    '\u2011': '-',  # non breaking hyphen
    '\u2013': '-',  # en dash
    '\u2014': '-',  # em dash
    '\u00A0': ' ',  # nbsp
}

trans = str.maketrans(replacements)
new_string = your_string.translate(trans)

Note that this only works if you want to replace single characters from the input. {'a': 'bb'} is a valid replacements, but {'bb': 'a'} is not.