First, congratulations on choosing to learn Spanish!

Is this the first time that you type in a foreign language? Do you often find yourself copy-and-pasting special characters like á or ñ, for example, and wish there was an easy shortcut? Guess what, there is and we will teach you how to change to a Spanish keyboard!

This is how a Spanish keyboard looks like:

Windows 10 allows users to easily add and switch between different languages without having to buy a separate physical keyboard. Can you imagine the hassle of having to change the whole keyboard every time you want to switch between two languages or more?

Personally, I use almost daily four languages: English, Spanish, Catalan, and French.  Therefore, I can use the language bar to switch between languages that use different keyboard layouts. Easy, peasy!

To change to Spanish keyboard settings on Windows 10, follow these 7 steps:

1. Navigate to Windows Settings by clicking on the gear symbol on the left side of the Start Menu
2. Click on “Time & Language”
3. Click on “Region & language” in the left sidebar
4. Under “Languages”, click “Add a language”
5. Find the language that you would like to add, for example, “Spanish (Spain)”
6. After clicking on it, you may be asked to specify a regional dialect
7. You will be returned to the “Region & language” page

Once you have followed these 7 steps, a new icon will appear next to the date and time on the bottom-right of your screen, on the language bar tab.

Click on this icon to open a window listing the currently added languages. From here, you can select the language to change to a Spanish keyboard.

What happens if I am working on someone else’s computer and I don’t want to mess with their keyboard settings?

Don’t panic. I am going to explain to you how to type Spanish characters without changing to Spanish keyboard settings

There is a system called ASCII, where you can type any character you want. To type a character, press and hold the alt key while you type in the character’s ASCII code on the numeric keypad of your computer.

Below I have gathered the main characters you will need if you want to type in Spanish:

I hope this is of help to you. Please choose the method that works best for you.

I hope that you enjoy typing with the Spanish keyboard!

Mónica Romero Camps

Educational Director & Spanish Express Blogger

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Head image by Michka_B, from Wikipedia