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View Full Version : Typing Russian on an english keyboard? Possible?


yoyobek
2008-02-25, 20:33
So I'm slowly,painfully learning Russian.
One way I'm learning is to read Russian websites, forums, and so on. But one thing I find is that I cant type in Russian,because I'm using a generic english qwerty keyboard!

Now of course, I can Copy/Paste individual letters to make up words if I'm only typing a few words, a quote, a phrase..
Eg, вернусь, чтоб,but to copy/paste each individual letter to make up a word to make up an entire ,say for example, forum post?
It would take forever!

Any ideas of how to get round this?

And assuming I somehow managed to aquire a keyboard with Russian letters on it, would it even work on a english based computer?

I'm completely baffled on this one.

BSK
2008-02-25, 22:07
you tried language settings? on ebay you can sometimes buy stickers for keyboards with kyrillian letters ..

23
2008-02-26, 00:14
If I were you, I would paste all the kyrillian letters onto your keyboard, then write a program that replaces the Latin letters with letters from the Russian alphabet.

User types in: yntatb
Code:
y->ч
n->и
t->т
a>а
b->ь


Output: читать

rabbhimself
2008-02-26, 01:33
Control Panel >> Regional and Language Options >> Languages >> Details >> Add... >> Russian...Then lots of okays and accepts.

This is pretty much how I sorted out my Japanese.

jackketch
2008-02-26, 09:14
http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=russian+keyboard&btnG=Search+Products&output=html

Stickers cost a couple of quid or a proper keyboard about £13.

Personally I'd say get a proper keyboard and then just plug it in when you need it.

However avoid the flexible silicon keyboards. I bought a german one for the wife recently and its a bitch to type on. They're only really useful when you need to repair or test a machine elsewhere.

Cpt.Winters
2008-03-04, 00:51
why did you throw in some anti-american pomposity jack?

you're slacking

Numberjumbo
2008-03-04, 07:45
You could just find an online language translator on google, then copypaste the translated Russian text into the forum.

The following;
Приветствия Это от Numjum.

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

jackketch
2008-03-04, 12:14
why did you throw in some anti-american pomposity jack?

you're slacking

HUh? Non sequitur much?

yoyobek
2008-03-13, 22:58
You could just find an online language translator on google, then copypaste the translated Russian text into the forum.

The following;


http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Hehe.
I really dont trust babelfish. It's made me look like a complete rather than partial twat in the past. I suppose again, it would be good to obtain all the letters, but then again I could obtain them from any Russian website!

And simply using a translater kind of removes the point of my purpose, which is to get used to typing this language fluently.


Thanks for all the great suggestions, everyone.



There will come a day when I shall post on Totse in perfect fluent Russian!

..And then probably get banned for it..

Jive Talka
2008-03-14, 02:03
You can buy plastic Cyrillic covers for a few bucks online, someone else already mentioend how to change the language via settings.

brriot
2008-03-17, 04:28
Russian has been my first language. I know when my parents type they bought the russian stickers to place over the keyboard. it works out.

PirateJoe
2008-03-17, 23:57
Simply putting stickers on an english keyboard doesn't make the letters on the screen appear in russian. I'm not familiar with windows, but there should be a localization or international control panel somewhere that lets you change the keyboard mapping and character encoding to russian.

Jive Talka
2008-03-18, 00:31
Simply putting stickers on an english keyboard doesn't make the letters on the screen appear in russian. I'm not familiar with windows, but there should be a localization or international control panel somewhere that lets you change the keyboard mapping and character encoding to russian.

Oh God, this is so funny.

PirateJoe
2008-03-18, 01:02
Oh God, this is so funny.

?

I was serious. A few posters seem to be of the impression that just adding stickers will make "it all work out".

BSK
2008-03-18, 10:25
just take a look at the secound post in this thread and you know why your comment is just as useless as most others ..

Jive Talka
2008-03-18, 19:20
just take a look at the secound post in this thread and you know why your comment is just as useless as most others ..

Save for the kyrillian bit. :p

Just be sure not to make the mistake of locking yourself out of your computer because you changed the language to Russian.

yoyobek
2008-03-19, 12:20
Which is something I'm very likely to do.

I accidentally switched my phone over to some form of ..arabic..? And it took me a fucking week to find out what the hell I'd done.

Zay
2008-03-23, 17:54
I have a keyboard with arabic and cyrillic stickies on it that I ordered from this website:

http://latkey.com/

Someone already explained how you can set up your keyboard in the control panel. Then you just hit ALT + Shift to change languages.

Giomanach
2008-03-24, 01:52
Funny, I had this exact same trouble (same language, too) not long ago, and found a firefox extension that will allow you to type cyrillic characters in any text box with a hotkey, transliterated (though not perfectly... for some reason, W resulted in В, V in Ж, ...)

I'll post back when I find it (installed it on Windows, using Linux atm).

edit: found it.

http://mozdev.oregonstate.edu/russkey/russkey.xpi

It's not perfect, but it's easy to figure out.

For quick reference: +/= results in ь, [ in ш, ] in щ, ` in ю, w in в, v in ж, h in ч, and q in я. The rest correspond to their sounds, roughly. x is х, c is ц.

Demunic
2008-03-24, 01:59
you could probably get ubuntu, i mean it wouldnt do shit for your keyboard, BUT there is an option to allow you to change the layout of it from english to zulu.

and from there? get some white out and a sharpie!

yoyobek
2008-03-25, 18:11
I have a keyboard with arabic and cyrillic stickies on it that I ordered from this website:

http://latkey.com/

Someone already explained how you can set up your keyboard in the control panel. Then you just hit ALT + Shift to change languages.

Thanks for that, and all the other comments!

I'm very drawn to These (http://latkey.com/glowing_stickers.asp?SubCat=15), they appeal to my raver side and my future russian diplomat side.

IdentityCrisis
2008-04-01, 12:43
Russian on an English keyboard.

Couldn't resist:D

NiGhT PrOwLeR
2008-04-06, 07:44
i'm pretty sure win xp has an on screen keyboard,
set it to Cyrillic and type your ass off

its free and it works

Eagle Bay
2008-04-09, 11:17
Here's an on-screen russian keyboard. First google result for "on screen russian keyboard"

It can be clicked with the mouse or you can just type with your english keyboard.

Ыоужре шелцоме.

Edit: форгот тче линк, силлы ме!

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/paulGor/screen_e.htm
(I'm retranslating what I wrote in russian on babelfish, but it don't make any sense. Well, you'll figure it out, I'm sure.)

yoyobek
2008-04-09, 13:09
Here's an on-screen russian keyboard. First google result for "on screen russian keyboard"

It can be clicked with the mouse or you can just type with your english keyboard.

Ыоужре шелцоме.

Edit: форгот тче линк, силлы ме!




воскресеье..

Superb!

Not quite great, but it's an improvlemt. Thankyou.

DerDrache
2008-04-16, 21:46
Control Panel >> Regional and Language Options >> Languages >> Details >> Add... >> Russian...Then lots of okays and accepts.

This is pretty much how I sorted out my Japanese.

This.

/Thread.

irresponsible activist
2008-04-18, 03:49
Just fucking google it.

Lamabot
2008-04-22, 04:59
http://translit.ru/
http://gooru.de/
аффтар мудаг иди и3 сети ахтунчег