I have a suggestion=^..^=

Question

When I'm typing a message in Spanish I want to be as correct as possible when it comes to the accent marks. What I'm doing now is I have my computer character map up while typing so I can be sure to put in the correct accent marks where needed, but, that can be a little slow. Also, for some reason my character map doesn't seem to have the inverted exclamation point. That seems a bit weird, but..................
My suggestion is...........................
Would it be feasable to put all the special characters in Spanish under all the reply boxes AND in chat as well?
I'm just a perfectionist at heart and want to be as correct as possible. It also keeps up the practice while I'm doing the lessons. I think it would be a great idea! What do you think?
Thanks for taking it into consideration!
Purrs,
Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

I also want to thank you sooooo much for not deleting my account!! :) =^..^= - Catwoman, MAY 8, 2015

Answer 1

Hi Catwoman, it´s not a bad idea.Before I started learning Spanish I tried learning Turkish and their dictionary websites did have all the unusual Turkish letters in little boxes for users to click on. It´s possible to reconfigure the keyboard so accented vowels can be entered with the ' key followed by the vowel key, the ñ can be entered by the ;/: key and the ¿ and ¡ can be entered by the =/+ key. You can then reset the keyboard back to normal. I managed to give my keyboard this option but I can't remember exactly how. Hopefully a computer expert will read this and tell you.

Hi loctite297! Thank you so much for your response to my suggestion in 2011! Please forgive me for not responding to you sooner, but real life got in the way plus I'm on Disability because I suffer from Major Depressive Disorder, among other things. :) - Catwoman, MAY 8, 2015

Answer 2

Thank you for your tidbit of information AND the attachment! Very kind of you! By the way, your English is perfect! The only thing I could see that needed correction was your spelling of 'International'. You put a 'c' where the second 't' is. Of course, being that Spanish is your first language you more than likely spelled it that way out of habit
Thanks for your reply and info!
Purrs,
Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

Robert said:

Catwoman,I'm not exactly sure what you mean by putting the "special characters under the reply boxes". However, the the way I do it is to configure my keyboard as "English Internacional". All the acute accents are achieved by pressing the " ' " (apostrophe) immediately preceding the vowel: á, é , í, ó, ú. "ÿ". is SHFT-~, n; "ñ", is simply ~-n; "¿" is ALT-168; "¡" is ALT-173. This may seem awkward, but one learns with practice. I write mosly in Spanish and I've been doing it so long that it comes naturally. When I'm working on a keyboard that is not my own, I always carry with me a 2x2" piece of paper that I temporarilty tape on the monitor with the ALT key equivalents. I've been doing it since 1984 on IBM clones whereever I happen to be without a problem. The ALT key thing is slower, but it suffices. I have included with this missive, a copy of my "2x2". I wrote this entirely in English. I hope there are no errors.

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Thanjk you for your thoughtful input! Your English is flawless with only one error. With the word 'iinternational' you put a - Catwoman, MAY 8, 2015

(to continue) you put a 'c' where the 't' should be, but no worries. The world will not come to an end! LOL! - Catwoman, MAY 8, 2015

Answer 3

¡Qué lastima! Eso clave no funciona tampoco. ¡Voy a llorar!
Pero, gracias, Steve
Purrs,
Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

steve said:

Here is a complete description of how the us international keyboard works

motley said:

I use a laptop also. Did you try the left alt key? I went through every key on the keyboard to see what happened, that's how I found the ü ÿ

Catwoman=^..^= said:

Hi motley!I just wanted to let you know that by pressing the left shift key, the @ sign and the apostrophe key at the same time I can get ÿ, but, I still can't get the lowercase u with the ".." over it.I checked out the other Spanish website out that you gave and the right alt key doesn't work at all. I get absolutely nothing. I think it's because I have a laptop. The writer of the article also mentioned something about a specific software to buy as well? Maybe I should check into that.Anyway, motley, thanks for all your help. At least now with the apostrophe key I can make áéíóú!!Purrs,Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

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Answer 4

Here is a complete description of how the us international keyboard works

motley said:

I use a laptop also. Did you try the left alt key? I went through every key on the keyboard to see what happened, that's how I found the ü ÿ

Catwoman=^..^= said:

Hi motley! I just wanted to let you know that by pressing the left shift key, the @ sign and the apostrophe key at the same time I can get ÿ, but, I still can't get the lowercase u with the ".." over it. I checked out the other Spanish website out that you gave and the right alt key doesn't work at all. I get absolutely nothing. I think it's because I have a laptop. The writer of the article also mentioned something about a specific software to buy as well? Maybe I should check into that.

Anyway, motley, thanks for all your help. At least now with the apostrophe key I can make áéíóú!!

Purrs,

Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

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Answer 5

I use a laptop also. Did you try the left alt key? I went through every key on the keyboard to see what happened, that's how I found the ü ÿ

Catwoman=^..^= said:

Hi motley! I just wanted to let you know that by pressing the left shift key, the @ sign and the apostrophe key at the same time I can get ÿ, but, I still can't get the lowercase u with the ".." over it.

I checked out the other Spanish website out that you gave and the right alt key doesn't work at all. I get absolutely nothing. I think it's because I have a laptop. The writer of the article also mentioned something about a specific software to buy as well? Maybe I should check into that.

Anyway, motley, thanks for all your help. At least now with the apostrophe key I can make áéíóú!!

Purrs,

Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

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Answer 6

Hi motley!
I just wanted to let you know that by pressing the left shift key, the @ sign and the apostrophe key at the same time I can get ÿ, but, I still can't get the lowercase u with the ".." over it.
I checked out the other Spanish website out that you gave and the right alt key doesn't work at all. I get absolutely nothing. I think it's because I have a laptop. The writer of the article also mentioned something about a specific software to buy as well? Maybe I should check into that.
Anyway, motley, thanks for all your help. At least now with the apostrophe key I can make áéíóú!!
Purrs,
Catwoman=^..^= & Mija

Answer 7

I wáñt tó tháñk y'áll fór thé áddítíóñál íñfórmátíóñ. I éspécíálly wáñt tó tháñk yóú, mótléy, fór thósé wébsítés. As yóú cáñ téll I ám tákíñg fúll ádváñtágé of thé ápóstróphé kéy! LOL! Fór sómé réásóñ
ít wás ñót wórkíñg fór mé béfóré.
ÿów I cán fíñálly TYPE Spáñísh tóó!
Púrrs,
Cátwómán=^..^= & Míjá

Answer 8

The Properties box is greyed out until you select (click) the keyboard name. It should then appear solid. Make sure you're in keyboards and not languages. Look at the picture in my reply above and be sure it says keyboards above the name you are selecting. (If you look at my original post with pictures you will see that the Properties button is greyed out in that picture. That is because I had not clicked on a keyboard name as I did in the post above.)

Valerie said:

Quentin said:

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Answer 9

If you are using the US International keyboard and want the à (or èìòù) you hit the accent grave (`) key, next to the number 1, then the vowel.

Janice said:

loctite297 said:

Hi Catwoman, it´s not a bad idea.Before I started learning Spanish I tried learning Turkish and their dictionary websites did have all the unusual Turkish letters in little boxes for users to click on. It´s possible to reconfigure the keyboard so accented vowels can be entered with the ' key followed by the vowel key, the ñ can be entered by the ;/: key and the ¿ and ¡ can be entered by the =/+ key. You can then reset the keyboard back to normal. I managed to give my keyboard this option but I can't remember exactly how. Hopefully a computer expert will read this and tell you.

I also remap my keyboard, but the ñ (you can see I have remapped for this reply) is not found on my keyboard where the "/" (slash) would be, but rather where the semicolon is otherwise located. One other little point I stumbled on: there are two accents you need for Spanish, for example á and then also à. I do not know what those accents are called, but the accented letters are created by preceding the vowel, in this case the "a" with two different keys. The one you mention creates the á, é, í, ó, and ú. The other one (à) is found on my keyboard where the English left-side square bracket is located. To tell the truth, I have not seen too many words with that second accent, and it threw me for a loop the first time I tried to type it!! But as I mentioned in my reply to the original question, I have a picture of the Spanish keyboard front and center as my desktop background.

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Answer 10

Quentin said:

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Answer 11

loctite297 said:

Hi Catwoman, it´s not a bad idea.Before I started learning Spanish I tried learning Turkish and their dictionary websites did have all the unusual Turkish letters in little boxes for users to click on. It´s possible to reconfigure the keyboard so accented vowels can be entered with the ' key followed by the vowel key, the ñ can be entered by the ;/: key and the ¿ and ¡ can be entered by the =/+ key. You can then reset the keyboard back to normal. I managed to give my keyboard this option but I can't remember exactly how. Hopefully a computer expert will read this and tell you.

I also remap my keyboard, but the ñ (you can see I have remapped for this reply) is not found on my keyboard where the "/" (slash) would be, but rather where the semicolon is otherwise located. One other little point I stumbled on: there are two accents you need for Spanish, for example á and then also à. I do not know what those accents are called, but the accented letters are created by preceding the vowel, in this case the "a" with two different keys. The one you mention creates the á, é, í, ó, and ú. The other one (à) is found on my keyboard where the English left-side square bracket is located. To tell the truth, I have not seen too many words with that second accent, and it threw me for a loop the first time I tried to type it!! But as I mentioned in my reply to the original question, I have a picture of the Spanish keyboard front and center as my desktop background.

Answer 12

On my system, a Windows XP, I have added the Spanish in the "Control Panel->Regional and Language Options->the language tab->Details->Add installed services"

Then I also check "Language Bar" in the "Preferences" and check the box to instruct the system to "Show the language bar on the desktop."

When I want to type using the Spanish Keyboard, I set the focus (click) in the window in which I want to type in Spanish and all my keys are mapped to the Spanish keyboard.

Of course one must know where the keys are (that upside down exclamation point, for example!) ...and I don't have those positions memorized. But I also set a picture of a Spanish keyboard to my desktop as the background picture - handy for me to have a look when I need that upside down question mark.

Having traveled a lot for my work and had to use different keyboards in different countries sometimes from one day to the next, I found that I could train myself to switch without too much difficulty.

Give it a try. I am now quite fast with those special accents and charachters. (I am really good with German umlauted letters, by the way!!) You will be too

Hope I didn't leave anything out in this reply. Please let me know, or you may have a friend versed in your operating system who can help.

Note that if you are using a different operating system, what you need to do may be quite different....if so, sorry, I am (unfortunately) only familiar with the common Windows.

Answer 13

Answer 14

I just happened to get this in my e-mail this morning

http://spanish.about.com/od/writtenspanish/a/typingaccents.htm

This one even tells about the alt y for ü
& I don't the the other link does.

Answer 15

=^ .. ^=

These are the instructions I used. I have a little box at the top of my screen next to the min,max,close.
It says US when I click on it, I can change it to international & I just leave it there. Sometimes I accidentally delete the little box, but the it ends up in the little icons at the bottom of the screen.

http://www.studyspanish.com/accents/typing.htm