Foreign Keyboards

[XLS]

This may be a bit ignorant of me but using computer keyboards as a reference.   In places like Asia and Middle East where the primary language is not English are there keyboards that reflect the countries language?  Random thought. 

Edited December 27, 2015 by Wanda Kaishin
renamed thread to match topic

[aliangel3499]

I would like to say yes. I have seen a keyboard that has both the English letters as they are on most Western keyboards as well as Japanese letters. For example, there is a key for 'G', but there is also a Japanese character on that key so it could be used for either language.

[watangaboy]

Never crossed my mind before! Seems so simple but I think it is an Interesting question.Searching for a bit on google images I've found this keyboard 

So, I'd guess there are keyboards like that, with roman alphabet stickers and a custom alphabets for a region in particular. Maybe someone from those continents could give us some insight.

[lushlala]

Same here, @watangboy! Now that I think about though, it makes perfect sense. I've never come across one anywhere. That one on the link you posted must make life a lot easier for many people. I imagine the same would be the case for languages like Cantonese and Mandarin. Sometimes when I'm trying to type in French, it can be a rightnightmare, so language specific keyboards would be great, for sure  

[宇崎ちゃん]

Typing Chinese and Japanese is easy on even western keyboards (I do this all the time).
There's a keyboard IME that converts everything to Chinese or Japanese characters as you type.

And on Windows 10 I found the same thing for Russian: Russian Mnemonic Keyboard.

The real challenge is to type Arabic, Hebrew or Korean with a western keyboard.

 

Heh, I incidentally posted this in the wrong topic 2 hours ago.
Shame I just realised it.

[3rdeyeguy]

That's a great question that had never crossed my mind. I guess I always assumed there was a program setting that would automatically translate the letters via some sort of software program. Although in the case where a letter didn't exist, I can definitely see where a problem would occur.

[czarina84]

I've actually been wondering the same thing.  I always see posts with accent marks over the letters and I wondered how they got that to happen.  I wasn't sure if they had software or just a different kind of keyboard.  Thank you for posting this.  I, too, am not very technologically inclined.  The fact that I can post is a small victory. 

[aliangel3499]

I find the hardest thing about typing Arabic is remembering where all of the keys are. For example, whenever I want to type "ر", I look for it by the 'r' when it is usually on the bottom of the keyboard, similar to the picture posted above. I think the easiest tool to use is a tablet because you do not have to try to remember which Roman letter coincides with each Arabic letter or spend the time to click on each letter using a mouse.

[aliangel3499]

  On 12/17/2015 at 1:53 PM, czarina84 said:

posts with accent marks over the letters

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Are the words written with Roman letters? Because I know some people use short cuts such as Alt + 0225 to write "á" or Alt + 0252 to write "ü". The only catch is that you need to use the numeric keypad rather than the numbers right above the letters.

[pesic87]

I come from Serbia and my keyboard has letters/keys in Latin on it.

Latin letters - Serbian and Croatian keyboard

And the Cirilic one:
Serbian keyboard-Cirilic letters

Mine looks like the first one.

 

 

[czarina84]

  On 12/17/2015 at 1:58 PM, aliangel3499 said:

Are the words written with Roman letters? Because I know some people use short cuts such as Alt + 0225 to write "á" or Alt + 0252 to write "ü". The only catch is that you need to use the numeric keypad rather than the numbers right above the letters.

Expand  

They are written in different languages.  Some words are in Spanish, some in German, etc.  Spanish and French words have accent marks, such as the ~ over the n in Spanish and the ^ in French.  German has the umlaut.  And then, of course, you have the ones that look like little slashes over them.  They have different names depending on the language, but are essentially the same accent mark: `

[宇崎ちゃん]

@czarina84 My advice is to just set up the US International keyboard, it's a keyboard layout that's already available in all modern operating systems.

All you'll need to do is this:
" + o = ö
~ + n = ñ
^ + e = ê
' + a = á
` + u = ù
Right alt + s = ß
And so on.

I can imagine you will find this annoying as a native English speaker, but it'll become very convenient over time.

[Chris_A]

Keyboards are a huge issue for me as I try to work as a translator. Using an English keyboard when translating German documents is definitely a pain. I just wish you could switch from one language setting to the other in real time.

[czarina84]

  On 12/18/2015 at 12:58 PM, Blaveloper said:

@czarina84 My advice is to just set up the US International keyboard, it's a keyboard layout that's already available in all modern operating systems.

All you'll need to do is this:
" + o = ö
~ + n = ñ
^ + e = ê
' + a = á
` + u = ù
Right alt + s = ß
And so on.

I can imagine you will find this annoying as a native English speaker, but it'll become very convenient over time.

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It's not my English-speaking side that will find it annoying, it's my technophobe side that will.    I grew up without a computer so I'm still trying to learn about them. 

[宇崎ちゃん]

  On 12/19/2015 at 11:23 PM, Chris_A said:

Keyboards are a huge issue for me as I try to work as a translator. Using an English keyboard when translating German documents is definitely a pain. I just wish you could switch from one language setting to the other in real time.

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You could use the US-International keyboard as I already suggested, it covers all west European languages in 1 layout.
Then you can add a couple of east European languages under your "English" keyboard and press CTRL + Shift to switch between layouts.

So your wish already came true before you wished it.

[cheers100]

  On 12/18/2015 at 12:58 PM, Blaveloper said:

@czarina84 My advice is to just set up the US International keyboard, it's a keyboard layout that's already available in all modern operating systems.

All you'll need to do is this:
" + o = ö
~ + n = ñ
^ + e = ê
' + a = á
` + u = ù
Right alt + s = ß
And so on.

I can imagine you will find this annoying as a native English speaker, but it'll become very convenient over time.

Expand  

Hello,

This is very helpful. Do you know what the short cut for a German quotation mark is- the one is lower, and the other is up.

Thank you! 

[宇崎ちゃん]

@cheers100 No, I'm not aware of this.
Sorry about that.

[cheers100]

  On 12/20/2015 at 12:58 PM, Blaveloper said:

@cheers100 No, I'm not aware of this.
Sorry about that.

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It's fine. Thank you for your reply. Have a great day! 

[Chris_A]

  On 12/20/2015 at 9:20 AM, Blaveloper said:

You could use the US-International keyboard as I already suggested, it covers all west European languages in 1 layout.
Then you can add a couple of east European languages under your "English" keyboard and press CTRL + Shift to switch between layouts.

So your wish already came true before you wished it.

Expand  

I did not know this was actually possible. But thanks for your suggestion, I will try it out for sure.

[Trellum]

My friend has a keyboard with Arabic characters. my laptop has the Spanish one   Which basically means I've the ''ñ'' letter and I've other keys that make it super easy for me to add the accents to the words. Other than that the Spanish keyboard is not so special,  it actually looks a lot like the one the English speakers use, but since Spanish is my mother tongue the lack of a ''ñ'' letter  would be too much for me to handle.