Typing in only one language, say for example English, is wonderful if you have an English keyboard on your device. It is not a task at all. But what if you need to type a word other than English? Words, sentences, or even entire paragraphs in a language not too different from English? A language that has the English alphabet but is also not necessarily pronounced in English? These languages look a lot like English, but they don’t work anywhere near that. They have their own set of grammar rules.
So, to the basic question. What exactly are accents and how do they differentiate a language? Each language has its own way of pronunciation. Some languages pronounce words as they are, while other languages pronounce them with a different accent. These accents are identified linguistically with marks, often placed on top of an alphabet or letter, thus modifying the way the alphabet is pronounced or iterated.
Copying and pasting words or alphabets with accents can’t do much, and authenticity isn’t one of them. Instead, you can type your own accents. Here are four ways you can insert accents on any digital platform.
Right-click on the taskbar and click on the ‘Taskbar Settings’ option that appears.
Scroll down the ‘Taskbar’ screen a bit to find the ‘Touch Keyboard’ option under ‘Taskbar Corner Icons’. Click the toggle bar for this option and set it to ‘ON’.
Click on the ‘Touch Keyboard’ icon which is now visible in the bottom right corner of the task bar. This will open the touch keyboard.
You can change the size of the keyboard by clicking the “gear” icon in the upper left corner of the touch keyboard.
Select ‘Keyboard Layout’ from the gear icon dropdown and choose ‘Default’ or any option of your choice from the following dropdown.
You will now see the on-screen keyboard in the layout of your choice.
Right click and hold on the letter, the accent you want to add text for. Scroll to the chosen alphabet and click on it.
The accented alphabet appears on your screen. To close the touch keyboard, press any key on the computer keyboard.
How to add a new keyboard in Windows 11
You can also change the language of the touch keyboard to directly search for the accents of a particular language. This is how you add a keyboard for a different language, other than the default language keyboard.
Open ‘Settings’ by right-clicking the Start button on the taskbar. Click ‘Settings’ on the pop-up menu.
Click ‘Time & Language’ in the list of options on the left on the settings page. Then select “Language & Region” from the menu on the “Time & Language” screen.
Next, press the ‘Add a language’ button next to the ‘Preferred languages’ option on the ‘Language and region’ page.
In the “Choose a language to install” dialog, search for the language you want to add by scrolling through the list or by entering the language name in the dialog’s search bar. Click on the desired language and then click ‘Next’.
Click the ‘Install’ button in the ‘Install Language Features’ dialog.
The new language will be added to your list of languages.
Click on the three horizontal dots to the far right of the newly added language and select the ‘Language’ options from the pop-up menu.
A default keyboard will be added to the selected language, this can be changed by adding more languages and removing the initial one.
Click the ‘Add a Keyboard’ button in the ‘Installed Keyboards’ option under ‘Keyboards’.
Choose the keyboard you want to add from the list and click on it.
Next, click the ‘keyboard’ icon in the right corner of the task bar to open the touch keyboard.
Click the language button (ENG) at the bottom right of the touch keyboard, and then select the newly added language keyboard.
You will now be typing the alphabet of your chosen language, both on the screen and on the physical keyboard.
To quickly change the keyboard language, click the language button next to the keyboard icon and change the language in the pop-up window.
You can also mix keyboard languages by pressing the Windows Key and Spacebar button.
How to remove a keyboard in Windows 11
Click the keyboard language button next to the keyboard icon in the right corner of the taskbar.
Select ‘More Keyboard Settings’ at the bottom of the list of keyboard layouts.
Click the three horizontal dots next to the language, keyboard you want to remove, and select “Language Options” from the pop-up menu.
Scroll down the “Language Options” screen to find the “Keyboard” section. Choose the keyboard you want to remove and click on the three horizontal dots adjacent to that keyboard’s name. Click on the ‘Delete’ pop-up option.
The chosen keyboard will be deleted.
Type accents with keyboard shortcuts in Windows 11
Each keyboard language brings its own range of keyboard shortcuts to the table. Here, we’ll list keyboard shortcuts for some of the most common accents that use the US International English keyboard.
For this, make sure you have added US English to your list of languages and also included the US International English language keyboard (see the previous section for how to do both).
The language button next to the ‘keyboard’ icon on the taskbar has to be ‘ENG INTL’ to carry out the keyboard shortcuts that we will mention below.
Different punctuations result in different accents.
Acute accent and cedilla – ‘ (apostrophe key)
Grave accent – ` (accent grave key)
Tilde accent – ~ (tilde key)
Umlaut accent – (quotes or citation key)
Crcumflex – ^ (caret key)
Press the keys in the order listed to execute the correct accented alphabets.
| Accent | press and hold | then press | resulting accent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acute Accent + Cedilla (lowercase) |
‘ (apostrophe) |
a, my, i, o, you, C |
á, é, í, ó, ú, ç |
|
Acute Accent + Cedilla (capital letters) |
‘ (apostrophe) + Shift key |
a, my, i, o, you, C |
Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ç |
|
Serious Accent (lowercase) |
` (key grave accent) |
to, my, i, or, you |
a e i o u |
|
Serious Accent (capital letters) |
` (accent grave key) + Shift key |
to, my, i, or, you |
A E I O U |
|
umlaut (lowercase) |
Shift key + ” (quote key) + Alt key |
to, my, i, or, you |
a e i o u |
|
umlaut (capital letters) |
Shift key + ” (quote key) |
to, my, i, or, you |
A E I O U |
|
circumflex (lowercase) |
Shift key + ^ (caret key) + Alt key |
to, my, i, or, you |
a e i o u |
|
circumflex (capital letters) |
Shift key + ^ (caret key) |
to, my, i, or, you |
A E I O U |
|
Accent mark (lowercase) |
Shift key + ~ (tilde key) + Alt key |
or north to |
in a |
|
Accent mark (capital letters) |
Shift key + ~ (tilde key) |
or north to |
IN A |
Type accents with their Alt codes in Windows 11
This method requires a bit of mental work, especially if you are a regular with accents. You will need to memorize the alt codes for the respective alphabets and their accents. If that seems too stressful, don’t worry! We have all the alternative codes here.
Before entering the alt code for any alphabetic accent, make sure you press the alternate key on your keyboard. Hold down this key until you’ve entered the full alt code, then release the alternate key to see the accented alphabet.
| accents/ alphabets |
Sharp | Grave | Circumflex | accent mark | Umlaut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A (capital letters) |
alternative+0193 A |
alternative+0192 A |
alternative+0194 A |
alternative+0195 A |
alternative+0196 A |
| a (lowercase) |
alternative+0225/160 a |
alternative+0224 a |
alternative+0226 a |
alternative+0227 a |
alternative+0228 a |
| AND (capital letters) |
alternative+0201 ME |
alternative+0200 ME |
alternative+0202 ME |
– |
alternative+0203 ME |
| and (lowercase) |
alternative+0233/130 me |
alternative+0232 me |
alternative+0234 me |
– |
alternative+0235 me |
| Yo (capital letters) |
alternative+0205 ME |
alternative+0204 ME |
alternative+0206 ME |
– |
alternative+0207 ME |
| Yo (lowercase) |
alternative+0237/161 Yo |
alternative+0236 Yo |
alternative+0238 Yo |
– |
alternative+0239 Yo |
| EITHER (capital letters) |
alternative+0211 either |
alternative+0210 EITHER |
alternative+0212 EITHER |
alternative+0213 EITHER |
alternative+0214 either |
| either (lowercase) |
alternative+0243/162 either |
alternative+0242 either |
alternative+0244 either |
alternative+0245 either |
alternative+0246 either |
| OR (capital letters) |
alternative+0218 your |
alternative+0217 OR |
alternative+0219 OR |
– |
alternative+0220/154 OR |
| or (lowercase) |
alternative+0250/163 your |
alternative+0249 your |
alternative+0251 or |
– |
alternative+0252/129 or |
| Y (capital letters) |
alternative+0221 Y |
– | – | – |
alternative+0159 Y |
| Y (lowercase) |
alternative+0253 Y |
– | – | – |
alternative+0255 Y |
| N (capital letters) | – | – | – |
alternative+0209/165 NORTH |
– |
| n (lowercase) | – | – | – |
alternative+0241/164 north |
– |
Type accents with the Windows character map in Windows 11
The Windows character map is a group of all the special characters plus the alphabets, numbers, and symbols that you would find on a typical computer keyboard. The character map makes it easy to instantly insert the required accented alphabet.
Click the ‘Search’ button on the task bar, indicated by a magnifying glass icon. Enter ‘Character Map’ in the search bar that appears at the top of the search page. Click the app name under “Best Match” on the right side of the search results or the “Open” option below the app name and icon on the left to launch the Character Map.
The character map is an expansive display of various characters. You can also choose the font for these characters. Click the box next to ‘Font’ to make that choice.
When you click on any character, it will not appear in the ‘Characters to copy’ box. For this you will need to drag and drop the character into this box or you can click on the character and then click ‘Select’ at the bottom right of the Character Map box.
Once you have selected the character, click the ‘Copy’ button next to ‘Select’. The character is now copied to your clipboard. You can paste it in any text format.
All languages have accents. Some languages have an obvious mark of these accents in their written language, and others do not. This guide is for those languages that require written accents, and we hope that these methods will be useful when you are looking to write accents in any language.
