What laptops do language students use?

[Cultivatingtulips]

I ask coz DS will be studying MFL at uni and never uses his (admittedly old and low spec!) laptop because he finds typing accents etc so time consuming. So he writes notes and essays by hand. But at uni, he wants to use a laptop - what ones are recommended for language students? Apols for niche question

If you have a Mac you just hold down the vowel key and it gives you options è ê ä ö etc

DD says I can do similar by right clicking on my PC but I'll be honest and say I cannot work it out and go to insert instead which is a pain.

So a Mac may be your friend.

Thanks @clary ! Just googled and MacBooks super expensive but perhaps I can get a refurbished one. Will look into it

iPads are very good for note taking in lectures etc.

DD did MFL a decade plus ago and had a MacBook. iPad in y4.

I forgot. If he's slow at typing, a few lessons might help?

DS using a Dell laptop (German/Japanese MFL).

There will be keyboard shortcuts for the commonly used accents. For example alt gr + e gives you e with an acute accent. I speak French and have taught myself a few.

You can set up any device to just toggle between keyboard for different languages - they’ll use the normal keyboard layout for that language, so usually accents are easier to access.

Obviously they aren’t written on the keyboard, so it can take a bit of getting used to- mixing up w and z happens a lot until you get used to it. On an iPad they are written because it is touch screen, so that might be easier for learning, you can get iPhone to switch too, but don’t know about android, don’t see why not though.

I type in a few languages and haven't found accents too much of a problem. alt gr + vowel gives you an acute accent, thus á é í ó ú, which is almost all you need for Spanish, and for other accents once you've been on Word a few times the right ones are in your recently used in the insert tab.
Also, if you add spellcheck for the relevant languages on Word, it will mostly add the accents automatically.

I just have a basic HP Pavilion but set up for both my languages. Bought it in the UK because I prefer the QWERTY keyboard.

My iPhone keyboard changes depending on which language I'm using.

As a joint (mid September) birthday and starting university present, D was the lucky recipient of a fairly expensive Dell. Once it had finally keeled over towards the end of her year in France (so just out of warranty - our local IT repair person said at the time that telling customers that their Dell was, as they suspected, a Norwegian Blue was something that he was doing quite a lot of, ?rogue batch), she bought herself a not so pricey HP (the 15" screen version of the 14" one DS2 and I have got, but without going upstairs and looking at mine I can't remember the exact model), which seemed to fit the bill.

A Mac also gives you the option to change the language by clicking in the menu bar. You can also show the keyboard, so that you can see what you're doing. You can select which languages to put into your dropdown menu.

I have mine set to British English and normally just do what Clary suggests for accents, but I sometimes use the Russian keyboard, the Serbian Latin keyboard and the Latin Cyrllic keyboard.

Info here:

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchlp1406/mac

If you get one with a separate number pad on the keyboard - or get a number pad accessory (e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fosmon-Wireless-Shortcut-Function-Compatible/dp/B09NRZCJRQ) - you can type letters with accents, umlauts, tildes, etc., by holding down the Alt key and typing a 3-digit code on the number pad:

Alt-128 = Ç
Alt-129 = ü
Alt-130 = é
Alt-131 = â
Alt-132 = ä
Alt-133 = à
Alt-134 = å
Alt-135 = ç
Alt-136 = ê
Alt-137 = ë
Alt-138 = è
Alt-139 = ï
Alt-140 = î
Alt-141 = ì
Alt-142 = Ä
Alt-143 = Å
Alt-144 = É
Alt-145 = æ
Alt-146 = Æ
Alt-147 = ô
Alt-148 = ö
Alt-149 = ò
Alt-150 = û
Alt-151 = ù
Alt-152 = ÿ
Alt-153 = Ö
Alt-154 = Ü
Alt-155 = ø
Alt-157 = Ø
Alt-160 = á
Alt-161 = í
Alt-162 = ó
Alt-163 = ú
Alt-164 = ñ
Alt-165 = Ñ
Alt-168 = ¿
Alt-225 = ß (German scharfes s)
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If you use certain characters regularly it quickly becomes second-nature to use these. I used to work in Germany 25+ years ago and can still type characters with umlauts, Eszett (scharfes s), etc., pretty much in my sleep (I used my own PC with UK keyboard a lot).
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I prefer the shortcuts that are basically just ctrl and whatever punctuation mark looks like the accent you want. Then you just type the vowel. E.g. ctrl + ' for an acute accent, ctrl + ^ for a circumflex, etc. I touchtype in English so if I am writing in French I prefer to just stick to the shortcuts rather than changing keyboards, and it gets easier with practice.

However, you can also buy a set of transparent stickers that show an AZERTY (or other) keyboard layout in a different colour on your existing keys. Obvs this would only work for one MFL.

My daughter is studying dual language honours and uses a large iPad with a pen and connecting keyboard. It's perfect for her requirements for lectures, assignments and essays and doesn't feel the need for a laptop.

I have a QWERTZ keyboard so it's set up for French. If I want to type something in English (usually the symbols are different) I just switch the keyboard to 'English' and then type without looking as your fingers seem to know where everything is, even if you can't see it.