6 ms·

While a personally agree with you thoroughly, this weekend I learned that Thai people love number pads because the language has too many characters and it's own

While a personally agree with you thoroughly, this weekend I learned that Thai people love number pads because the language has too many characters and it's own numerals, yet most of the time people use/prefer Arabic numerals, so with a number pad they have access to the numbers without having to swap keyboard layouts to English just for numerals.

cycomanic 6y ago
It's the same with the French, every French person I know is using the number pad a lot when typing on a French layout. The reason being that in the usual top row you have the accented characters and for numbers you have to press shift, so it's easier to use the number pad. As a side note the French keyboard layout is one of the worst to use if you are not French. Typing your password at an Internet cafe can be a real pain.
- hrktb 6y ago
  > worst to use if you are not French Even then, plenty french programmers use a qwerty layout of some sort. I saw people using the Canadian layout, and the international layout is I think the most efficient for IT stuff, even if it requires getting used to composing accentuated characters.
- krzyk 6y ago
  How many accented characters are there in French? In Polish we have 9 such characters and most people use just so called "programmers keyboard layout" which uses left-alt + letter to do the accent. E.g. alt + e = ę, alt + l = ł (with a one case where we have two different accents for a single letter: z, so we use alt+z = ż and alt+x = ź, the second letter is less commonly used then the first one) 20-30 years ago there were some strange keyboard layouts that didn't use alt, but hopefully they were forgotten.
  - jgtrosh 6y ago
    On the AZERTY keyboard there's éèàç (I know ç is not technically an accent) and the circonflexe and tréma accents as dead keys. This is apparently enough to cause massive confusion on QWERTY keyboards and for everyone to accept discarding accents on uppercase letters (ÉÀÇ). Also it's apparently advantageous enough to accept pushing []{} to silly alt combinations. Some people move to BÉPO or something like that, I use QWERTY with Xcompose.
    - benhurmarcel 6y ago
      Some improvement is being proposed: https://norme-azerty.fr/ https://norme-azerty.fr/
    - input_sh 6y ago
      In Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (Latin) we have č ć š đ ž, but we've just repurposed extra keys from English characters (to the right of l and p). We've retained x y q (no purpose in our alphabet), making it quite convenient to just type using the native keyboard layout, regardless if I'm writing in my native language or in English.
  - progval 6y ago
    on the row of number keys: éèçà on the right of the keyboard: ù but that's enough to want accents and symbols on the number row by default (&é"'(-è_çà) and numbers when pressing shift. I think that's the reason that bépo (a French variant of dvorak which allows easy access of both common accentuated keys and numbers) is more popular among French speakers than dvorak is for English speakers, proportionally.
    - makapuf 6y ago
      Offtopic, but the ù has a dedicated key (no modifiers) basically for one word: "où" (where)
    - reportgunner 6y ago
      In my language we have ľščťžýáíé äúô - first group is on number row, second group is on the right of the keyboard where you have []; on EN layout. I have never seen anyone use an Alt+number to get these, I personally default to EN layout and switch only when I write in local language.
  - Tade0 6y ago
    My father still uses the alt-less layout. I can only navigate it because my first steps in typing were done on a mechanical typewriter, which this layout tries to emulate.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    Before 90s "Polish typist's layout" was more popular, it was based on QWERTZ and had the <>?/[]();: signs moved out of the way to put Polish letters there. All typing machines used it, but it was awful for programming obviously, so the "Polish programmer's layout" was added, and because it was exactly the same as standard american QWERTY (except for Left Alt + some letters) it won almost overnight. Windows still shipped with both layouts enabled for Polish locale for decades, and nobody used the typis one, but there was a shortcut that changed between them. When you accidentally used that shortcut - if you had Y or Z or Polish letters in your password - you couldn't log in (because you typed "yeti" but got "zeti" but it still looked like * * * * :) ) I think there must have been millions of USD lost on support calls because of that little shortcut :)
    - TechniKris 6y ago
      I think a misunderstanding occured here: AltGr is actually the right Alt key. The left one is the regular Alt. If I remember correctly shortcuts to change layout/language are by default Ctrl+Shift and Alt+Shift respectively (correct me if I'm wrong). These are incredibly annoying, especially in some games. Luckily though you can disable them from the settings. Instead there's Win+Space, which is a Godsend and should've always been the only default. Fun fact: on Windows Polish programmer's keyboard you can use the Tilde key (Shift+Grave) to input Polish characters as well, e.g. press Shift+Grave (it won't put in any symbol at this point), release and then press 's' to input 'ś'. However it makes it problematic to input the tilde symbol itself, so I've modified my layout with the MS Keyboard Layout Creator to get rid of that functionality/flaw (aside from other minor improvements) https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=22339 https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=22339
      - ajuc 6y ago
        Right, it's the right alt, not left:) It's muscle memory to the point I had to check myself doing it to be sure :) The shortcut to change was definitely something with Ctrl and Shift because I remember accidently switching layout when I was selecting text by whole words with Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right. Tilde works funny on linux - it makes alternative version of every letter, not only from the current locale. I was accused of being a Russian pretending to be Polish on some Polish forum long ago because I wrote something with a Greek (or cyrylic?) letter by accident because I did something with home directory in the background and only pressed ~ once instead of twice :)
  - m-p-3 6y ago
    French Canadian here. Here are all the accents and special characters I use to write, and I'm not sure if I'm forgetting some that I rarely use. à â ç é è ê î ï ô ö ù
    - greenshackle2 6y ago
      When do you use ö?
      - hyakosm 6y ago
        Probably ë and not ö
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  > the French keyboard layout is one of the worst to use if you are not French It's also terrible if you're French.
bjcy 6y ago
THIS. Is so ลำบาก[^1]. I tend to use my iPhone/iPad to type certain kinds of stuff because of the dedicated "123" modifier. [^1]: Completely off topic, but I love when there are words that capture a feeling in one language for which there isn't a suitable analogue in another. For non-Thai speakers, this word means burdensome, but depending on context covers the whole span of "inconvenient" to "distressing". In general, though, I find English has more individual words that express an entire concept vs. Thai which has to use compound words to explain its meaning.
- WildGreenLeave 6y ago
  Since you are being offtopic, I'm joining you. As someone that isn't Thai, living in Europe but does like the country/people and is trying to learn some Thai, it is always great fun to randomly see Thai words somewhere so I can try to see if I can pronounce the word already. Sadly enough, I wasn't able to haha I've learned from Thai speakers that there are multiple words that mean multiple things depending on the context. Where as English (and Dutch) do have this sometimes, but less often than Thai words. I am pretty sure (but correct me if I'm wrong) that both Chinese, Japanese and Korean have this too. Dutch also has some interesting words that cannot be directly translated to English. In Dutch we don't have 'siblings', we have 'broers en zussen' where 'broers' are your brothers and 'sisters' are your sisters. There is no word that we use for both of them. Same with the word 'gezin', it means the family you are living with. Another one is 'giftig' which has 2 english words too. Poisonous and venomous, but in Dutch it is the same thing.
  - toastal 6y ago
    I actually didn't know this word either, so it was good vocab. Thai's abugida is pretty complicated, but once you memorize the rules, there's not too many spelling exceptions, and a lot of words are pronounced about as as you'd expect. If you're looking for something more phonetic possible as a stepping stone, Lao, despite having less content to consume, is much, much easier to learn where the abugidas look about the same if you squint; you could look at Lao as simplified Thai (with a 6th tone). Lao had a spelling reform recently that dropped all the duplicate letters for Pali/Sanskrit words, there's no implied vowel (and they change form less), there's no การันต์ (◌์), and the final consonants are normalized to the sound it makes. Lao and Thai are asymmetrically intelligible where Lao people understand Thai but not the other way around. That said, the Northeastern Thai dialect, อีสาน, is almost identical with small dialectal differences. Grammatically they are the same so anything you learn in one will almost certainly transfer to the other with just a different vocabulary set for common words (to do, to work, I, you, man, woman, etc.).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

cycomanic 6y ago

It's the same with the French, every French person I know is using the number pad a lot when typing on a French layout. The reason being that in the usual top row you have the accented characters and for numbers you have to press shift, so it's easier to use the number pad. As a side note the French keyboard layout is one of the worst to use if you are not French. Typing your password at an Internet cafe can be a real pain.

hrktb 6y ago
> worst to use if you are not French Even then, plenty french programmers use a qwerty layout of some sort. I saw people using the Canadian layout, and the international layout is I think the most efficient for IT stuff, even if it requires getting used to composing accentuated characters.
krzyk 6y ago
How many accented characters are there in French? In Polish we have 9 such characters and most people use just so called "programmers keyboard layout" which uses left-alt + letter to do the accent. E.g. alt + e = ę, alt + l = ł (with a one case where we have two different accents for a single letter: z, so we use alt+z = ż and alt+x = ź, the second letter is less commonly used then the first one) 20-30 years ago there were some strange keyboard layouts that didn't use alt, but hopefully they were forgotten.
- jgtrosh 6y ago
  On the AZERTY keyboard there's éèàç (I know ç is not technically an accent) and the circonflexe and tréma accents as dead keys. This is apparently enough to cause massive confusion on QWERTY keyboards and for everyone to accept discarding accents on uppercase letters (ÉÀÇ). Also it's apparently advantageous enough to accept pushing []{} to silly alt combinations. Some people move to BÉPO or something like that, I use QWERTY with Xcompose.
  - benhurmarcel 6y ago
    Some improvement is being proposed: https://norme-azerty.fr/ https://norme-azerty.fr/
  - input_sh 6y ago
    In Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (Latin) we have č ć š đ ž, but we've just repurposed extra keys from English characters (to the right of l and p). We've retained x y q (no purpose in our alphabet), making it quite convenient to just type using the native keyboard layout, regardless if I'm writing in my native language or in English.
- progval 6y ago
  on the row of number keys: éèçà on the right of the keyboard: ù but that's enough to want accents and symbols on the number row by default (&é"'(-è_çà) and numbers when pressing shift. I think that's the reason that bépo (a French variant of dvorak which allows easy access of both common accentuated keys and numbers) is more popular among French speakers than dvorak is for English speakers, proportionally.
  - makapuf 6y ago
    Offtopic, but the ù has a dedicated key (no modifiers) basically for one word: "où" (where)
  - reportgunner 6y ago
    In my language we have ľščťžýáíé äúô - first group is on number row, second group is on the right of the keyboard where you have []; on EN layout. I have never seen anyone use an Alt+number to get these, I personally default to EN layout and switch only when I write in local language.
- Tade0 6y ago
  My father still uses the alt-less layout. I can only navigate it because my first steps in typing were done on a mechanical typewriter, which this layout tries to emulate.
- ajuc 6y ago
  Before 90s "Polish typist's layout" was more popular, it was based on QWERTZ and had the <>?/[]();: signs moved out of the way to put Polish letters there. All typing machines used it, but it was awful for programming obviously, so the "Polish programmer's layout" was added, and because it was exactly the same as standard american QWERTY (except for Left Alt + some letters) it won almost overnight. Windows still shipped with both layouts enabled for Polish locale for decades, and nobody used the typis one, but there was a shortcut that changed between them. When you accidentally used that shortcut - if you had Y or Z or Polish letters in your password - you couldn't log in (because you typed "yeti" but got "zeti" but it still looked like * * * * :) ) I think there must have been millions of USD lost on support calls because of that little shortcut :)
  - TechniKris 6y ago
    I think a misunderstanding occured here: AltGr is actually the right Alt key. The left one is the regular Alt. If I remember correctly shortcuts to change layout/language are by default Ctrl+Shift and Alt+Shift respectively (correct me if I'm wrong). These are incredibly annoying, especially in some games. Luckily though you can disable them from the settings. Instead there's Win+Space, which is a Godsend and should've always been the only default. Fun fact: on Windows Polish programmer's keyboard you can use the Tilde key (Shift+Grave) to input Polish characters as well, e.g. press Shift+Grave (it won't put in any symbol at this point), release and then press 's' to input 'ś'. However it makes it problematic to input the tilde symbol itself, so I've modified my layout with the MS Keyboard Layout Creator to get rid of that functionality/flaw (aside from other minor improvements) https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=22339 https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=22339
    - ajuc 6y ago
      Right, it's the right alt, not left:) It's muscle memory to the point I had to check myself doing it to be sure :) The shortcut to change was definitely something with Ctrl and Shift because I remember accidently switching layout when I was selecting text by whole words with Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right. Tilde works funny on linux - it makes alternative version of every letter, not only from the current locale. I was accused of being a Russian pretending to be Polish on some Polish forum long ago because I wrote something with a Greek (or cyrylic?) letter by accident because I did something with home directory in the background and only pressed ~ once instead of twice :)
- m-p-3 6y ago
  French Canadian here. Here are all the accents and special characters I use to write, and I'm not sure if I'm forgetting some that I rarely use. à â ç é è ê î ï ô ö ù
  - greenshackle2 6y ago
    When do you use ö?
    - hyakosm 6y ago
      Probably ë and not ö
benhurmarcel 6y ago
> the French keyboard layout is one of the worst to use if you are not French It's also terrible if you're French.

bjcy 6y ago

THIS. Is so ลำบาก[^1]. I tend to use my iPhone/iPad to type certain kinds of stuff because of the dedicated "123" modifier. [^1]: Completely off topic, but I love when there are words that capture a feeling in one language for which there isn't a suitable analogue in another. For non-Thai speakers, this word means burdensome, but depending on context covers the whole span of "inconvenient" to "distressing". In general, though, I find English has more individual words that express an entire concept vs. Thai which has to use compound words to explain its meaning.

WildGreenLeave 6y ago
Since you are being offtopic, I'm joining you. As someone that isn't Thai, living in Europe but does like the country/people and is trying to learn some Thai, it is always great fun to randomly see Thai words somewhere so I can try to see if I can pronounce the word already. Sadly enough, I wasn't able to haha I've learned from Thai speakers that there are multiple words that mean multiple things depending on the context. Where as English (and Dutch) do have this sometimes, but less often than Thai words. I am pretty sure (but correct me if I'm wrong) that both Chinese, Japanese and Korean have this too. Dutch also has some interesting words that cannot be directly translated to English. In Dutch we don't have 'siblings', we have 'broers en zussen' where 'broers' are your brothers and 'sisters' are your sisters. There is no word that we use for both of them. Same with the word 'gezin', it means the family you are living with. Another one is 'giftig' which has 2 english words too. Poisonous and venomous, but in Dutch it is the same thing.
- toastal 6y ago
  I actually didn't know this word either, so it was good vocab. Thai's abugida is pretty complicated, but once you memorize the rules, there's not too many spelling exceptions, and a lot of words are pronounced about as as you'd expect. If you're looking for something more phonetic possible as a stepping stone, Lao, despite having less content to consume, is much, much easier to learn where the abugidas look about the same if you squint; you could look at Lao as simplified Thai (with a 6th tone). Lao had a spelling reform recently that dropped all the duplicate letters for Pali/Sanskrit words, there's no implied vowel (and they change form less), there's no การันต์ (◌์), and the final consonants are normalized to the sound it makes. Lao and Thai are asymmetrically intelligible where Lao people understand Thai but not the other way around. That said, the Northeastern Thai dialect, อีสาน, is almost identical with small dialectal differences. Grammatically they are the same so anything you learn in one will almost certainly transfer to the other with just a different vocabulary set for common words (to do, to work, I, you, man, woman, etc.).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]