Spanish texts without accents, inverted question and exclamation marks and tilde carry a message – namely that their authors are not using a Spanish computer keyboard. Though replacing ñ with n, for instance, is correct when conveying the meaning of a certain word, it is a sloppy way of doing so.
Why Typing Special Spanish Characters Helps
Especially when writing to someone in a Spanish-speaking country or in Spanish, the extra trouble of inserting the correct special letter will go a long way. It shows the recipient of the message or letter that the author has
- a good command over the language,
- an eye for detail and
- an understanding of the importance of the correct letter.
Granted, when writing a casual email to a friend or family member, demonstrating one’s command over the language is surely not the first objective. However, when applying for a job that requires Spanish language skills or any formal written communication in Spanish, for that matter, minding one’s ás and és is key.
The Tilde in Spanish
The tilde, that wavy line (~), is a diacritical mark that is used in many languages, usually to indicate nasalization of a consonant; in Spanish the letter n. Though leaving out the tilde would not change the meaning of a word, it would change its pronunciation. Compare senor and señor, for example.
The following shortcut keys work well for PCs:
- á = 00e1 + Alt + x
- Á = 00c1 + Alt + x
- é = 00e9 + Alt + x
- É = 00c9 + Alt + x
- í = 00ed + Alt + x
- Í = 00cd + Alt + x
- ó = 00f3 + Alt + x
- Ó = 00d3 + Alt + x
- ú = 00fa + Alt + x
- Ú = 00da + Alt + x
- ü = 00fc + Alt + x
- ñ = 00f1 + Alt + x
- ¡ = 00a1 + Alt + x
- ¿ = 00bf + Alt + x
Special Spanish Characters Online
In global settings, like the Internet for instance, URLs and email addresses with special characters would not work. Here, they need to be replaced by the vowels and n without diacritical marks or ue in the case of ü.
There are other ways of writing special Spanish letters (or any special characters, for that matter) but the above mentioned shortcuts will work regardless if numerical lock is on and do not require installation of any programs.
Other useful articles about hotkeys and shortcuts:
Typing special German letters fast
Keyboard shortcuts for writers
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