# How can I make my computer stop speaking FrenchÉ **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2015, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596 "2015-11-04T07:22:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/1 "2015-11-04T07:22:05Z")
Recently, my computer has decided that I speak French. Pressing the apostrophe key gets me an _accent grave_. Pressing another key gets me an _accent acute_. I do not want French accents, as I write and post in English. Is there any way to tell my computer that I do not want French accents at any time and under no circumstancesÉ See what I mean. Why can I not get regular English punctuationÉ (i.e. question mark). ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/2 "2015-11-04T07:28:35Z")
What operating system do you use? For example if Windows 7 look at this page, under Activate the U.S. International Keyboard and Other Language Keyboards: [http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/keyboards/winkeyvista.html](http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/keyboards/winkeyvista.html) ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/3 "2015-11-04T07:32:01Z")
Win 8.1. Let me reboot… ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/4 "2015-11-04T07:39:17Z")
WhyÉ Nope. Still French. Whatès upÉ (Seriously, how can I communicate in English with this French insistence on the part of my OSÉÈ) Letès try a full machine reset, (Frustrating, isnèt itÉ) ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/5 "2015-11-04T07:47:02Z")
Why? Ah, that’s better. But the question remains: why would my computer suddenly decide that I speak French? ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/6 "2015-11-04T10:44:51Z")
For us Canadians, Windows installs with both English (US) and English (CMS) keyboard layouts. You can switch with a hotkey, the default is Alt-Shift. You can see the current language on the task bar in the notification area. If you right click on itand go to Language Bar properties you can remove the hotkey so it doesn’t accidentally get switched. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/7 "2015-11-04T11:03:05Z")
And you can remove the French version, as you don’t want it, by going to Control Panel anddd… ok, they’ve moved in 8.1, improving things aye, but still not where you’d expect… I think you’ll have it under “language”. ---
**Author:** ![mistymage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mistymage/32/459_2.png) [@mistymage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mistymage)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/8 "2015-11-04T12:44:13Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Why? > > Ah, that’s better. But the question remains: why would my computer suddenly decide that I speak French? Do you have a cat or cats? They like to walk across keyboards which can end up with hilarious and/or frustrating results. Why, no, kitty, I did not need Chrome Help, but thanks for opening that page up… oh, and thanks for posting a page of gibberish to a favorite forum, too. Young humans have did the same back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/9 "2015-11-04T14:14:42Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Why? > > Ah, that’s better. But the question remains: why would my computer suddenly decide that I speak French? The answer is simple. By default the hotkey combo to switch languages is an easy and convenient one. Because the billions of non-US users who write multi-lingually use that key combo every few sentences all day long. You bumped it by accident. I do too sometimes. The solution is to go into the keyboard language part of control panel and disable all except US English. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/10 "2015-11-04T19:39:23Z")
Don’t eat a croissant over your keyboard, it will fill with crumbs and turn French. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/11 "2015-11-04T19:43:46Z")
This had happened to me a lot. I didn’t know about the Alt-Shift hot key. I must hit it frequently without even knowing it. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/12 "2015-11-04T19:45:25Z")
I actually need to use French accents frequently, but I don’t know where to find them on the French keyboard. Is there a handy-dandy keyboard map somewhere that I could print it and have by my keyboard? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/13 "2015-11-04T20:50:45Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I actually need to use French accents frequently, but I don’t know where to find them on the French keyboard. Is there a handy-dandy keyboard map somewhere that I could print it and have by my keyboard? [http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/bylanguage/french.html](http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/bylanguage/french.html) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/14 "2015-11-04T21:19:40Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > This had happened to me a lot. I didn’t know about the Alt-Shift hot key. I must hit it frequently without even knowing it. Yep. Got a panicked phone call recently from a friend trying to respond to important business emails and the keyboard suddenly started speaking French, and it was due to accidentally hitting the hotkey (it’s not always Alt-Shift, there are variants) and we eventually disabled the stupid thing so it couldn’t happen again. Hotkeys are the work of the devil. Don’t even get me started on accidentally hitting hotkeys in Firefox and having it become possessed, alternately going from full-screen to small-screen and/or popping up diagnostic windows with raw HTML and sometimes even losing my whole damn session in which something important was happening!! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/15 "2015-11-04T22:11:05Z")
Be thankful it didn’t surrender to the German keyboard mapping ör yoü would häve götten thiß ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/16 "2015-11-05T16:14:41Z")
If you have an EN-US computer, no language switching hotkeys should be enabled anyways–because there won’t be another language set up. But if you’re Canadian, I guess it might be set up by default. I’d suggest going into your language options and disabling it altogether. I don’t have Windows 8.1, so all I can do is link you [here](http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/using-multiple-languages). ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/17 "2015-11-05T17:30:30Z")
Intel video cards are the best. Hitting the wrong hotkey combo will turn your screen upside-down. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/18 "2015-11-05T17:49:28Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Be thankful it didn’t surrender to the German keyboard mapping ör yoü would häve götten thiß Øn the øther hånd, the Swedish key måp is åwesøme. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/19 "2015-11-05T18:52:40Z")
> [@](#): > > How can I make my computer stop speaking FrenchÉ tell it that it’s day 4 so the work week is over… ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596/20 "2015-11-05T18:54:04Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > [http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/bylanguage/french.html](http://symbolcodes.tlt.psu.edu/bylanguage/french.html) Thanks for this, but I was hoping for a map of the Canadian French keyboard, showing which key is é, which is ç, and so on. I’ve not been able to find that at this site? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-my-computer-stop-speaking-frenche/736596.md?page=2)