How to set a Foreign Language IME on your English Keyboard
If you wish to set up a dual-lingual IME on your English language Keyboard, then this article is just for you.
Steps to set up a foreign language keyboard on your Windows OS:
Windows OS offers the option to add a foreign language as a secondary language IME while keeping the English language as the primary language IME.
When the foreign language IME is activated, it will make little changes to your computer’s user interface. The only change you will notice is the addition of icons “ENG” and “A” at the bottom of the desktop in the taskbar.
- Go to the Windows search bar and type “Settings”.
2. This will open the “Settings” page. Click option “Time & Language”.
3. The “Date & time” page will open by default. From the left-side navigation panel, click “Language”.
4. The Language page will open. To add a new language, click on “+ Add a preferred language”.
5. Next, type the language you want to add as secondary IME.
6. When you type, the preferred language name will appear in the result. Select the language and click the “Next” button to continue to the next page.
7. On the next page, the user will be prompted to install the language selection. Click the “Install” button to proceed with the installation. No additional steps are required here.
8. Installation process begins. Wait for the installation to complete.
9. Notice a new icon “ENG” appearing at the bottom of the page in the taskbar. It indicates that your current keyboard language is English.
10. To switch the language from English to Korean, click on the icon to open the context menu.
11. You will find a new language option for selection. Select the foreign language of preference.
12. Another status indicator “A” will appear beside the “ENG” icon. This indicates that at the moment the keyboard language is English.
13. Click on the status indicator “A” to toggle between English and Korean. You will notice the status indicator changing from “A” to “가”, indicating that the keyboard language is now Korean. Click the status indicator again to toggle back from “가” to “A”.
Note: There is a shortcut for toggling between “A” to “가”. Just press the “alt” key that is located on the right side of the keyboard to toggle between English and Korean. Remember, only the “alt” key on the right side will work in this case.
13. Open the notepad and type some characters. You are now ready to start typing in Korean.
Next Step
Now that your preferred foreign language keyboard has been set up, it is time to practice some typing. Typing a foreign language on an English keyboard can be difficult for some languages. Example Korean. In such cases, you will have 2 options — either to purchase a new keyboard that supports foreign language input or identify which English Alphabet keyboard indicates which Foreign language alphabet. The second method may appear initially tricky and difficult. However, if you can follow a table chart, using the English Language keyboard for Foreign Language typing is not that hard.
Read my next blog on how to type Korean on an English Keyboard.