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Learning keyboard for foreign languages.

  Tags: Keyboard
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
19 messages over 3 pages: 13  Next >>
magic9man2
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6614 days ago

149 posts - 153 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French, Cantonese, Russian, Korean, Taiwanese, Arabic (Levantine)

 
 Message 9 of 19
31 December 2007 at 12:08am | IP Logged 
For Japanese typing it's very easy the way I do it. I just set it so I can switch between English and Japanese using a language bar in the corner. Just type the sounds you want and use the space bar to decide which kanji to use for the sound.
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ilanbg
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6395 days ago

166 posts - 189 votes 
Speaks: French, English*
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (classical), Persian

 
 Message 10 of 19
31 December 2007 at 12:29am | IP Logged 
I've since decided to use the Arabic-QWERTY keyboard for my Arabic. It matches up the sounds of the Arabic
alphabet to similar letters in the Latin alphabet on the QWERTY keyboard. It's not the same layout that Arabic
writers would use but until I foresee myself using any computers in the Middle East (or elsewhere that speaks
Arabic), I don't see the need to learn anything more complicated than that.
1 person has voted this message useful



Karakorum
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6554 days ago

201 posts - 232 votes 
Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)*
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 11 of 19
31 December 2007 at 12:40am | IP Logged 
ilanbg wrote:
I've since decided to use the Arabic-QWERTY keyboard for my Arabic. It matches up the sounds of the Arabic
alphabet to similar letters in the Latin alphabet on the QWERTY keyboard. It's not the same layout that Arabic
writers would use but until I foresee myself using any computers in the Middle East (or elsewhere that speaks
Arabic), I don't see the need to learn anything more complicated than that.


I think you will be alright. If you feel comfortable then it should be fine. The only reason I can think of to use a Middle Eastern layout is that shift kinda makes sense with some letters (e.g. alif -> alif hamza, lam -> lam alif). I don't know how letters are related to their "uppercase" in a QWERTY Arabic keyboard.
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ChrisWebb
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 6248 days ago

181 posts - 190 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Korean

 
 Message 12 of 19
04 January 2008 at 4:39am | IP Logged 
I just use stickers for Korean typing, I find it preferable to having to use the visual keyboard that Microsoft includes in the IME as that seems less than predictable at times.
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bushwick
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Netherlands
Joined 6229 days ago

407 posts - 443 votes 
Speaks: German, Croatian*, English, Dutch
Studies: French, Japanese

 
 Message 13 of 19
04 January 2008 at 9:33pm | IP Logged 
i really need to get myself sticker for korean.
i hope i can maybe find transparent sticker paper (i know it exists!)

it's just too bad the korean keyboard isn't as simple as the japanese one :(
(although it's built completely logical)
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epingchris
Triglot
Senior Member
Taiwan
shih-chuan.blog.ntu.
Joined 7013 days ago

273 posts - 284 votes 
5 sounds
Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2
Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish

 
 Message 14 of 19
05 January 2008 at 9:15am | IP Logged 
Typing in Japanese is a breeze. Typing in Chinese......euh......please just stick to pinyin or zhuyin for now if you do not wish to give Chinese up. :)

I use the keyboard layout that natives would use. Since you still have to learn the keyboard one way or the other, why not just catch up with the mainstream once and for all?

Nevertheless, the AZERTY is really bizarre; I find it not only weird but also insufficient for the French language. I just found something Canadian Multilingual Standard, and it looks nice enough. I'm considering changing my layout for French to that one.
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furrykef
Senior Member
United States
furrykef.com/
Joined 6457 days ago

681 posts - 862 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian

 
 Message 15 of 19
05 January 2008 at 2:47pm | IP Logged 
I'm getting a Japanese keyboard from eBay (I found a cheap one... my final price with shipping was $24). My rationale was that I need a new keyboard anyway -- sometimes the keys don't register very well -- so I might as well get a Japanese one. Although stickers work almost as well, and of course there's always romaji input with the IME, the Japanese keyboard's extra keys look attractive to me. For instance, I'd like being able to quickly switch to katakana without having to hit alt+Caps Lock, which is always kinda awkward for me. I don't think the Keyboard Layout Editor can fix that, either.

For typing in Spanish, I use the US International keyboard layout with a standard QWERTY keyboard, and I'll probably make my own keyboard layout to accomodate the particular set of diacritics I need (for Spanish and other things) in the near future.

- Kef


Edited by furrykef on 05 January 2008 at 2:49pm

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furrykef
Senior Member
United States
furrykef.com/
Joined 6457 days ago

681 posts - 862 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian

 
 Message 16 of 19
09 January 2008 at 4:38pm | IP Logged 
I got the Japanese keyboard. It was a pain to configure correctly, mostly due to Windows' stupidity, but now it works!

Unfortunately, the keyboard does have some drawbacks. For instance, the apostrophe has been moved to a key where you'll need to hit SHIFT to produce the apostrophe. That's a little annoying... I miss being able to produce one with one keystroke.

Caps Lock doesn't work when typing in English, though this seems to be an IME issue. Not a big issue in my case, but something to be aware of. (The key works. If I have this configured as a US keyboard, for instance, it'll work normally. But I wouldn't normally use a Japanese keyboard that way.)

Kana input has a few drawbacks, too. It's a pain to type punctuation characters like ! ? ( ) < > in full-width in kana text. If you need to use the ゛ or ゜ marks, the character will still take as many strokes as it would in romaji. Many characters do indeed take fewer strokes, though...

おはようございます。僕の名前はケフです。

I get 28 strokes for that, not including the strokes to switch to/from katakana to type "Kefu" (since such switching is usually unnecessary for katakana words unless they're words it won't recognize), but including the use of the SHIFT key to type the maru (Japanese period). The same sentence typed in romaji would be, "ohayougozaimasu.bokunonamaehakefudesu." 38 strokes. So, on the whole, you probably can type quite a bit faster than in romaji mode once you get used to it.

I'll probably keep using this keyboard, but it's certainly not critical for typing in Japanese at a reasonable speed. (You can only type as fast as your brain allows, anyway!) I must say I like not having to hit alt+caps lock to switch to katakana and such, though...

- Kef



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