how do arabic, chinese or any speaker of a language that does not have the latin alphabet type?

Question

are they able to type their scrip on computers.

Answer 1

I'm not a big expert on the topic but I can tell you about the Cyrillic script.



In Belarus, Russia and other countries with languages in this script, keyboards come already with two sets of letters printed on each button (e.g. under the button 'A' we have also the letter 'Ф'). So, for example, a person who works, let us say, both with Russian and English can switch from one to the other using computer settings (e.g. I use Microsoft, and in the language panel you can choose the language and keyboard settings you need). After some practice people can type in both scripts fairly well and quickly and switch between them.



BTW, in other languages like German or Spanish some letters in the keyboard also differ, e.g. in German the letters 'z' and 'y' come vice versa.



As to Asian languages, I was also wondering about this question. I know a girl from China and when I asked her she told me that they type not the whole hieroglyphs, but a series of separate lines or signs and depending on this sequence the computer automatically transforms them in the hieroglyph they need. I guess it's similar in other languages like Chinese.

Answer 2

To all the people who assume that everybody is using Microsoft: That is NEVER always the case. Your input is therefore INVALID. What if the user happens to be using a Mac computer or a Linux box? Then your answer doesn't HELP solve the problem, but rather complicates it further!!! Nothing revolves around Microsoft, Google, etc... anymore!!! Microsoft sucks! Google sucks!



To those who assume that only PINYIN or romanization could be used to input Chinese, you are also WRONG!!!



There are many programs out there, where using PINYIN and / or you can input he character on a square grid via IME software for writing the character by left-clicking and writing the needed character by mouse on mousepad.



Or there's writing tablets where you can connect to the computer and start writing the character you need with the stylus in Traditional or Simplified Chinese.



In most Operating Systems now, they would have some type of software for different languages. Just need to play around to find it.

Answer 3

I'm from Bangladesh and I can type both English and Bengali alphabets using the same keyboard. The extra features in this keyboard is that we have Bengali alphabets inscribed/printed at the lower part of each keys including the numerical/numbers.



We have to install two programs or drivers to be able to type and see what we are typing in our mother tongue Bangla (Bengali). First is the Keyboard Installer for Bengali script and I use Bijoy-2003 Pro for the keyboard setup and Bijoy-2003 Fonts for Fonts setup. We copy all the available Bangla Fonts (I use SutonnyMJ with Font Size: 14) and paste the same in the Font folder of Windows Control Panel.



Now all I have to do is press "Ctrl+Alt and B" together at the same time to switch from English to Bangla and again the same "Ctrl+Alt and B" for reverting back to English alphabet typing.



PS. You ahve to keep an eye on the drop-down menu to see what font it's showing and change the font there too if your "Ctrl+Alt and B" is still not typing the Bangla or English as you have desired.



Hope above helps.

Answer 4

In Microsoft, go to the Control Panel, hit on "Region and Language," and when the next screen appears, go to "Keyboards and languages", The choice is very wide, including even different varieties of English (currency symbols, position of quotation marks and the @ sign, etc.) for Britain, Australia, the USA, English speaking Canada, etc. Once set up. change of keyboards can be effected by control, shift or, better, by hitting on the "EN" symbol on the toolbar which will bring up a menu for every language you have selected. Even if your other language uses the Latin alphabet will present pitfalls (German and Polish transpose the positions of Z and Y). Microsoft tries to use the same key for similar letters (e.g. Greek "β" occupies the same key as "b"), but this has only very limited possibilities, and you will need to teach yourself touch typing anew for every new alphabet.

Non alphabetic language such as Chinese and Japanese are more complicated, but the same in principle: opt for the corresponing keyboards and see for yourself.

Answer 5

it incredibly is my own opinion, being an area English speaker, that as a results of fact they are so a ways from English it makes them stressful to earnings. as an occasion, the accents are distinctive, the verbs in all probability conjugate in yet in a distinctive way, and such as you reported, the countless character structures. i do no longer understand if different English audio gadget sense the comparable way, yet i might think of those could be a number of the main motives.

Answer 6

你是说这样吧？



They have special programs installed on their computers. In Chinese, you can type out the word phonetically (the Chinese I wrote would be "ni shi shuo zhe yang ba" and a list of available characters that fit the sound pop up and they will be listed 1, 2, 3... etc. You then press a number and it chooses the character for you.

Answer 7

Keyboards come in many forms

For example here is Arabic http://www.clavierarabes.com/arabickeyboard/



They come in all languages



Simplified Chinese http://www.linguanaut.com/chinese_keyboard.htm



They come as plug in USB keyboards too , I have USB Arabic keyboard cost abt £25 [$40 US]

same as this http://www.arabic-keyboard.co.uk/



Here are USB Chinese Keyboards 区起企情 恶恶恶大发国进科开噢费门小



http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1CHIK_en-gbGB479GB479&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=ARABIC+KEYBOARD#q=chinese+keyboard&hl=en&rlz=1C1CHIK_en-gbGB479GB479&prmd=imvnsa&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=_keuT4mpJ8Ok8QOc1e28DQ&sqi=2&ved=0CJoBEK0E&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=b9e7ad663ce380a2&biw=1366&bih=667



You can easily change your Keyboard in the Windows settings and put stickers over the keys, but do not think that pressing any specific letter is the equivalent of that language in English'.



For instance setting your keyboard in windows to be an arabic keyboard does not mean that pressing "A" will give you the arabic equivalent .

I will keep it simple but can go on for ages about this :)

Answer 8

for arabic the keyboard comes with both english and the arabic alphabet...