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–Hello!–

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Are you planning to visit Paris soon? Will you need to find an internet cafe?

I did a search recently and was surprised at how many internet cafes there are in Paris.

It made me think of the first time I typed on a keyboard in Paris. [many moons ago now] and how confused I was when the letters that appeared on the computer screen didn’t match what I had typed… or I THOUGHT I had typed…

That was my introduction to foreign language keyboards – I’ve come a long way since then.

Long ago when the internet was a pup [an old saying from my grandaddy], you can press a couple of keys on the keyboard to switch between typing French and English. This saved my bacon many times, but it certainly confused people who would borrow my computer from time to time.

These days, with MS Windows getting updated a million times since I first used it, and the Mac OS being so fabulous, there are definitely easy ways to ‘switch’ between typing English and French… if you only knew which ones. are.

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—1—

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How to write English on a French keyboard

The first thing to do is to add an English keyboard module via the START menu, which anyone can do; You don’t need to be a whiz kid or technical guru to do this:

In Win XP, you can change languages ​​and keyboard layout

1* start your computer
2* click the Start button
3* choose Settings, Control Panel and Regional and Language Options
4* click on the “Languages” tab
5* click the “Details” button
6* add a language and assign properties to it, one of which is US International English Keyboard.
7* for Windows XP, click Details
8* Click Apply to finish the process; the Windows installation CD is usually not necessary
9* for more help, see the keyboard and multilingual sections in Start – Help

Do you have Windows VISTA? Try these slightly different instructions when following the information above:

4* “Languages” tab becomes “Keyboard & Languages” tab
5 * “Details” button becomes “Change Keyboards”
6* click on the General tab to get to the Add section

Continue following steps 7-9.

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Now, just because I’ve shown you HOW to change the keyboard from French to English in an internet cafe, doesn’t mean the owner is happy you’re doing it. You should ask… you really should, so he’s leaving it up to you.

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The standard keyboard in English-speaking countries is known as a QWERTY keyboard. These are the first 6 letters, starting from the left, just below the numbers.

On a French keyboard, these same keys are converted to AZERTY, where A and Z have been moved up.

The French keyboard already has extra characters like the cedille embedded in the keys, whereas on a QWERTY keyboard you have to press the Alt key. [Windows PC] or the Ctrl key [Mac] and then the special character, sometimes twice.

PS I wrote an article for my website about this and thought it was a great idea to share the information with many other people who could benefit from it. You can see the article here:

http://www.one-night-in-paris.com/internet-cafes-in-paris.html

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The bottom line is that yes, there are solutions that allow you to type in English on a French keyboard without making your emails look like gibberish. If you can’t ‘add’ the English design as shown above, then you can certainly search and slowly peck to type your message.

And the best part? You’ll meet others in those internet cafes who have the same challenges, you’ll try new coffees and visit interesting cafes, so where better to learn how to type on a French keyboard than in Paris?

Enjoy your trip! Post a comment on my website if you like.

I need to go for a walk on the Champs Elysées… bye!

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