Looking down at your keyboard, you'll notice that there's no "é" key, but you see it in our foreign language courses, in dictionaries, and on websites. So, where is that key? No, there's not a special keyboard we use just for that key, or other non-English letters. Fact is, there are no lowercase letters on you keyboard either, but you know how to type them through the skilled manipulation of the caps-lock or shift key.

The trick then to typing letters from a foreign language is to know which modifier keys to hold down, and what key combinations to type on your keyboard. Some operating systems even give you a character palette of letters to pick from with your mouse. "Look mom! No typing!"

Do diacritical marks really matter? A diacritical mark is that funny squiggly line on top of some English letters you are otherwise familiar with. So, can you type a sentence in a foreign language omitting the diacritical marks, and still have it understandable? Sometimes. Sometimes not. Consider these sentences:

¿Cómo está?    "How are you?"
¿Como ésta?    "I eat this?"

The diacritical marks really changed the meaning, didn't they?

We know that the marks are not on our keyboards, we know that they're important, so how do we type them? Here's how.

Windows and Mac OS each have the ability to type these special diacritical marks, although the process is slightly different. Your operating system may even have a character palate from which you can visually choose characters. The table below lists Spanish, French, and German characters along with how to type them. If you're making a web page, you can copy from the HTML column on the right and paste into your HTML document.

Happy marking!