Study Abroad Scenarios: Keyboard and Language Issues

Even if the country you're visiting uses English, you may find that the keyboards are designed differently from American keyboards. In countries that don't speak English (or don't use the Roman alphabet), it's almost a guarantee that the keyboard of any computer you borrow will be designed differently. There are three main types of Roman-alphabet keyboard layouts, with dozens of national variations. A language using a non-Roman alphabet will also present you with an unfamiliar keyboard.

Installing foreign language support on your own computer

If you're using your own laptop, you'll still be familiar with your keyboard, but in that case you may have difficulty interacting with web sites and applications that expect text to be entered in a language (or a character encoding) other than U.S. English.

You can install some support for additional languages on modern Windows and Macintosh computers; once multiple language support has been installed, you'll need to change language settings through an icon in your task bar or menu bar when you begin work in a foreign language or with a foreign keyboard.

For more information on installing support for the language and keyboard of the country you're visiting, see Microsoft's List of languages supported in Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 Server and Global IME pages, or Apple's Language Kit Manuals.

Changing encodings or keyboards

If you're working with a web site in a foreign language, your web browser may correctly detect the language in use, or you may need to change its encoding settings (typically under the browser's View menu) at the same time that you change your typing language in the task or menu bar.

When you're using an American keyboard but setting your operating system to expect typing in another language, you may need to print a reference copy of that keyboard so that you can look at it while typing. It can be confusing when the first letter on your keyboard is a Q but pressing that upper-left key makes an A appear on the screen, as happens when typing on French keyboard layouts. (Another alternative is to purchase an inexpensive local keyboard and plug it in to your laptop, so that you can change keyboards when you change languages.) You can find illustrations of many countries' keyboard layouts at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_keyboard.

Make sure you choose usernames and passwords you can type on any keyboard you find

It's always safest to keep your usernames and passwords composed of characters that you can reliably type on the majority of the keyboards you visit in the area. If the country you're visiting supports the 26-character Roman alphabet as well as some extra characters with diacritical marks, stay with the Roman alphabet and numbers, since punctuation varies from keyboard to keyboard. Punctuation marks that we consider standard (such as exclamation points, the dollar sign, or square or curly brackets) are often replaced by other symbols on foreign keyboards (such as the country's currency mark or diacritically marked letters that aren't used in English).

Country-specific information

More specific information (for particular countries and particular languages) is given in the country and regional profiles.