It is almost impossible to write in French correctly with a keyboard marketed in France

[zMeul]

source: http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/01/france-says-azerty-keyboards-fail-french-typists

 

and that was a quote The French Culture and Communication Ministry in a recent statement

  

french keyboard defective

  

Currently, there are a variety of keyboards offered by manufacturers on the French market, but according to the operating system that is used and depending on the manufacturer of the keyboard, some keys are not in the same place, or so, they are available. This causes problems such as typing the use of accented characters, particularly accented characters to uppercase, use the "double chevron" and the use of both ligatures of French as are the "æ" (in e has it) and "œ" (e in o) and their equivalents in capital "Æ" and "Œ", just to name the most recurrent. It is therefore almost impossible to write French correctly with a keyboard marketed in France.  A standard keyboard for users residing in France should ideally meet all their needs. It seems essential that this keyboard allows the easy use of not only the French, but also different languages present in our territory, whether of regional languages or foreign languages, because these languages contain specifics that should be taken into account. Indeed, in a highly multilingual context, it is now necessary to be able to use several languages in the same document or the same project.  In this context, and on the spur of the Ministry of Culture and Communication, the French standards agency AFNOR initiates a normative project to develop a French standard keyboards corresponding to these expectations.  This publication discusses the origins of keyboard which is used today and present in detail its shortcomings for entering text in French and in the language commonly used in the territory. It represents the official position of the government on these issues.

 

 .pdf: http://www.culturecommunication.gouv.fr/content/download/132976/1439046/version/1/file/Repère_claviers_enligne.pdf

alternative french keyboard layout:

 

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we, in Romania, have our own keyboard and I simply despise it!

yes it's useful, in a way, in official documents; but if you need to type in different languages (english here as an example) it would be hair pulling

 

but the french ... they're just hilarious to conclude after all this time they need a new keyboard layout - god help the typist who will need to re-learn the layout  :lol:

[marldorthegreat]

Ha, french. Who wants to speak that! 

[DXMember]

I don't think that keyboard layout even has all the ASCII standard characters. and the letter 'A' is repeated like twice on every row

only a wild, twisted sado-masachist animal could have come up with that

[vanished]

The alphabet we use for English needs to be totally redone to be logical (you know, one sound per letter and one letter per sound)

They're not the only ones with issues

[vanished]

I don't think that keyboard layout even has all the ASCII standard characters. and the letter 'A' is repeated like twice on every row

only a wild, twisted sado-masachist animal could have come up with that

I don't think that's their actual layout.  Look a little closer

[SurvivorNVL]

It took me three weeks to adjust to DVORAK when I swapped from QWERTY.  I still can only remember some key placements without looking, but it's actually not too bad to re-learn and change your style.  QWERTY is still preferable for me, though.  I remember it all exactly - actually picture the letter in my mind when I hit down on the key without looking, DVORAK I'm picturing the wrong letter, but hitting the right key which drastically slows down typing as per second-guessing.

[marldorthegreat]

The alphabet we use for English needs to be totally redone to be logical (you know, one sound per letter and one letter per sound)

They're not the only ones with issues

That comes from how English is spoken, each word can be broken down into much longer words, but we do this for ease. As english came from the "peasants" in the early days of England, they were not very smart, so abbreviated many words. This explains why there are so many regional accents. If you are a native English speaker, we just get used to it. 

[Notional]

I don't think that keyboard layout even has all the ASCII standard characters. and the letter 'A' is repeated like twice on every row

only a wild, twisted sado-masachist animal could have come up with that

Løl. Learn to French

That being said, I thought dvorak was enough? Having ÆæØøÅå extensions on Danish keyboards work just fine.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

... and we here in Flanders are stuck with a variant of that stupid French layout with all those stupid characters instead of regular 1 to 0 keys. 

We don't need any of that in Dutch ! 

 

Almost makes me want to buy all new keyboards for the PC and laptops in the Netherlands. 

At least that's one thing that country is good for then. 

[vanished]

That comes from how English is spoken, each word can be broken down into much longer words, but we do this for ease. As english came from the "peasants" in the early days of England, they were not very smart, so abbreviated many words. This explains why there are so many regional accents. If you are a native English speaker, we just get used to it. 

None of that excuses the terrible mismatch between the written and spoken form, and just the general mess of the written form.  Here's just a few examples of what I mean:

• Why does "c" exist?  It is completely pointless!  It makes either an "s" sound or a "k" sound... both of which are already letters
• Why do we have a letter that can't be used alone?  Q... needs Qu... *facepalm*
• Why do we need to combine "t" and "h" to make a sound we use all the time?  There actually used to be a letter for the "th" sound.  Actually, there was one for each, but now we use "th" *sigh*
• Same nonsense for "sh" and "ch", etc.  Make a letter for that sound
• Some sounds we make we don't even have any consistent way to write.  Like the "s" in "pleasure".  It's basically the russian Ж but we don't have a letter for it! argh!!

​I could go on but this is kind of off topic and it could get lengthy...

[Coaxialgamer]

Wait , i've never had any problems typing in french . Moreover , we use azerty , which isn't THAT unorthodox ...

 

Why in the world would i want/need a new keyboard ???

[Coaxialgamer]

but the french ... they're just hilarious to conclude after all this time they need a new keyboard layout - god help the typist who will need to re-learn the layout  :lol:

 

I seriously am not learning a new layout . I've used azerty/qwerty  for far too long ...

[raphidy]

They should have predictive/corrective software for like œ character and such. I've never wrote œuf like that. Always wrote oeuf. For the accent, on the canadian french we only have the " ` ", alone and it just adds on to the next vowel.

[Mo_z_Art]

it took them a rather long time to figure this out

[patrick3027]

What the fuck? There's absolutely nothing wrong with the AZERTY layout. For letters such as é, à, è you don't have to write an accent when you capitalise them, even for handwritten french. The only problem is the capital ç and œ, both of which are fixed by software in Word and most browsers. This is a non issue.

And what's the issue with the @ symbol and the €? Never had a problem typing them on my keyboard.

If they make a new keyboard, this is what will happen: https://xkcd.com/927/

[Dabombinable]

None of that excuses the terrible mismatch between the written and spoken form, and just the general mess of the written form.  Here's just a few examples of what I mean:

• Why does "c" exist?  It is completely pointless!  It makes either an "s" sound or a "k" sound... both of which are already letters
• Why do we have a letter that can't be used alone?  Q... needs Qu... *facepalm*
• Why do we need to combine "t" and "h" to make a sound we use all the time?  There actually used to be a letter for the "th" sound.  Actually, there was one for each, but now we use "th" *sigh*
• Same nonsense for "sh" and "ch", etc.  Make a letter for that sound
• Some sounds we make we don't even have any consistent way to write.  Like the "s" in "pleasure".  It's basically the russian Ж but we don't have a letter for it! argh!!

​I could go on but this is kind of off topic and it could get lengthy...

Americans drop vowels, Australians have an almost different version of English from the UK, and all 3 have different meanings for the same words so yeah......you could go on for a lot longer x3.

[Syfes]

What the fuck? There's absolutely nothing wrong with the AZERTY layout. For letters such as é, à, è you don't have to write an accent when you capitalise them, even for handwritten french. The only problem is the capital ç and œ, both of which are fixed by software in Word and most browsers. This is a non issue.

And what's the issue with the @ symbol and the €? Never had a problem typing them on my keyboard.

If they make a new keyboard, this is what will happen: https://xkcd.com/927/

Same here, I use a French azerty layout on a daily basis and I've never had an issue writing in French. I don't see this going anywhere either.

[Misanthrope]

QWERTY was made so it would be easier to line up on an old fashioned type writer, yet LTT members are able to cleanly type at over 100wpm including Linus himself.

 

With that in my here's my message to the French: get the fuck over it.

[Sam Harradine]

None of that excuses the terrible mismatch between the written and spoken form, and just the general mess of the written form. Here's just a few examples of what I mean:

• Why does "c" exist? It is completely pointless! It makes either an "s" sound or a "k" sound... both of which are already letters
• Why do we have a letter that can't be used alone? Q... needs Qu... *facepalm*
• Why do we need to combine "t" and "h" to make a sound we use all the time? There actually used to be a letter for the "th" sound. Actually, there was one for each, but now we use "th" *sigh*
• Same nonsense for "sh" and "ch", etc. Make a letter for that sound
• Some sounds we make we don't even have any consistent way to write. Like the "s" in "pleasure". It's basically the russian Ж but we don't have a letter for it! argh!!

​I could go on but this is kind of off topic and it could get lengthy...

basically. FUCK English

[HalGameGuru]

-snip-

A lot of english isn't english. The english language basically "went a viking" and raided every neighboring language for vocabulary, syntax, and grammar. What people need to remember is that most every language, especially where their roots are well established, were spoken and set in stone long before writing it out was a thing. English is one of a very few languages where a large portion, if not a majority, of its vocabulary is newer than the alphabet it is built on, and many of the words are bastardizations of similarly spoken, OR SPELLED, words from other languages.

 

English needs to be simplified, but in the end it will be the words themselves and how they are pronounced and/or spelled that will change rather than the underlying foundations we build them on, english tones and inflections, or the alphabet. English is huge and complex but ever so versatile.

[RagnarokDel]

I'm from Quebec and I use Qwerty, it's much better. Just use the canadian multilingue standard and you're good to go.

[rattacko123]

• Why do we need to combine "t" and "h" to make a sound we use all the time?  There actually used to be a letter for the "th" sound.  Actually, there was one for each, but now we use "th" *sigh*
• Same nonsense for "sh" and "ch", etc.  Make a letter for that sound

I agree with the rest, but the thing is, combining 2 letters is more efficient than using another letter for each sound, it reduces letters in the alphabet and makes it more efficient for keyboard use, although it would help with writing but who writes nowadays.

[SirRoderick]

... and we here in Flanders are stuck with a variant of that stupid French layout with all those stupid characters instead of regular 1 to 0 keys. 

We don't need any of that in Dutch ! 

 

Almost makes me want to buy all new keyboards for the PC and laptops in the Netherlands. 

At least that's one thing that country is good for then. 

Frankly the only good thing about the azerty layout IS the fact that you don't have to hit shift to use the topmost special characters. It is a very un-ergonomic gesture to hit shift+6 for example, and keyboards tend to have this dedicated number section off to the right that is far far FAR easier to use anyway!

[IhazHedont]

French here. No problem with azerty keyboards.

I don't see why we should use another layout.

[DXMember]

I don't think that's their actual layout.  Look a little closer

misleading title image, false advertisment, reporte 9x perma