How to Type International Characters With a U.S. Keyboard (Part 2)

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This is the second in an eHow article series. This article assumes you have already changed your keyboard set-up, per our article "How to Type International Characters With a U.S. Keyboard (Part 1)." In this second article you will now learn how to use your keyboard.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Step1

To type accented vowels (such as á, é, and so forth):
First type a single quote: '
Nothing will seem to happen.
Then, type your vowel (a e i o u).
An accented vowel will show up instead: á é í ó ú

Step2

For vowels with double dots on top (ï ü):
First type a double quote (SHIFT + single quote): "
Again, nothing will seem to happen.
Then, type your vowel (a e i o u).
A vowel with double dots will show up instead: ä ë ï ö ü
This mark above these vowels is known as diaeresis.

Step3

To type ñ or Ñ:
Hold down the right Alt key (the left one won't do it), type n, and release the Alt key. You will get ñ.
For the uppercase ñ, hold down both the Shift and the right Alt key, type n, and then release them. You will get Ñ.

Step4

A similar trick is used for the opening question (or exclamation) mark ¿ (or ¡):
For the opening question mark (¿), hold down the right Alt key (the left one won't do it), type the key / on the alphanumeric keypad, and release the Alt key. You will get ¿.

For the opening exclamation mark (¡), hold down the right Alt key, type the key 1 on the alphanumeric section of the keyboard, and release the Alt key. You will get ¡.

Note that, conveniently, it is not necessary to shift either key to get the opening marks. But, as expected, you would have to shift the appropriate key to get the closing marks.

Step5

As an exercise, you may try holding down the (right) Alt key and try it out with all keys on the alphanumeric section of your keyboard. There are loads of new characters that will come up. You just need to remember the ones that make the most sense to you.

You can also try these keys before vowels or consonants and see what you get: ^, `, ~. These are, respectively, shifted 6, key to the left of alphanumeric 1, and its shifted version.

Step6

Type characters like ' " ^ ` ~ now. All you have to do is to type that key, and then a space. Voilá! Now you can type them.

Tips & Warnings

As you may have noticed, these key combinations cause very little interference for most typists. Some scenarios are non-intuitive, however, and we will deal with them in Part 3 of this article.
The characters ' and " are normally used in pairs. If you type them twice in succession, you will get a pair with no further effort: '' or "". Then, you will simply type inside the pair.