A question for the bi-lingual peeps

[HouseofWool]

I know we have several members who are multi-lingual. I have recently been corresponding via FB with some old contacts in Brazil, but I feel like a dolt because I cannot create the diacritics. Does anyone know how I do this in FB? Is it a setting on my computer?

I swear, having children has made me so much denser than I used to be...

[spotty_dog]

On my Mac, you can get a cedilla with option-c, an acute accent with option-e and the letter, tilde with option-n and the letter, circumflex with option-i and the letter. Hope that helps!

[Vishenka69]

Do you have a mac or PC? It's super easy on the mac, as you just add another language. The only trick is knowing the layout of the keyboard in the other language (with Russian, I have a phonetic option). With a PC, you might have to insert symbols.

[HouseofWool]

I have added the second language and it works in Word (I am on a PC) but not in FB...

[ladymoreta]

You might need to just copy and paste it from the Character Map (in Accessories).


Laurie

[Michele]

I'm not sure if this is what you mean. But I think you can create symbol short cuts via word...then you can use them in other programs I think. Similar to what spotty_dog said. But with a PC I think you have to create the key sequence short cut first.

If you want to try this. Go into word, then try to insert symbol, before you select it, I think it shows a key stroke sequence towards the bottom of the box. And if I'm remembering correctly there is also the option to change it. I made the French letters alt + letter when I was in school so I could type papers quicker. And I thought it worked in other programs but I might be wrong.

[HouseofWool]

I'm not sure if this is what you mean. But I think you can create symbol short cuts via word...then you can use them in other programs I think. Similar to what spotty_dog said. But with a PC I think you have to create the key sequence short cut first.

If you want to try this. Go into word, then try to insert symbol, before you select it, I think it shows a key stroke sequence towards the bottom of the box. And if I'm remembering correctly there is also the option to change it. I made the French letters alt + letter when I was in school so I could type papers quicker. And I thought it worked in other programs but I might be wrong.

I can do that in Word and the like, but when I try to do it on FB, the accent marks don't show up. I don't know if I need to change a setting in FB?

[Michele]

Weird. No idea about FB.

[corn poffi]

Hmmm...have you tried using FB in Portuguese? Maybe if you use that version as well, the diacritics will appear.

[oceanchild]

I can do that in Word and the like, but when I try to do it on FB, the accent marks don't show up. I don't know if I need to change a setting in FB?

I just tried some of the alt+ stuff on Facebook on my work PC (in both Firefox and IE), and it worked. So I've got nothing. Boa sorte!

[alison]

When I look at what a Brazilian friend of mine posts in Portuguese, she doesn't use any language-specific characters. When I post in German, I skip them, too (in German, you can "write out" the umlaut and sharp s though).

[MissCrabette]

Yeah, I skip the unique characters we have in Romanian. They're too much trouble, and people understand me without them.

Now if I could get my iPhone to stop correcting me when I type in Romanian...

[spotty_dog]

Same with my Spanish-speaking FB friends, nary an accent mark among 'em.

[HouseofWool]

Funny. My Portuguese speaking peeps are full of accent marks and all sorts of web abbreviations that I am having to learn quickly.

What I do is use the character map application to find all the characters I need and then paste them into notepad, and save the text file to my desktop. Then when I'm using the browser, I open up that text file and I can copy/paste the individual character at need. This works pretty well for Finnish and Czech.

For French I use the Alt+ shortcuts, like Alt+0232 for è on the numeric keypad.. you can find good ones by exploring around, starting with Alt+0224 for à and (possibly useful for Brazilian portuguese) Alt+0227 ã. But for hardcore use, I do the notepad thing.