How to set up a Russian keyboard on Windows, Mac, and phone

Valentina Petrovna was sixty-five years old. On March 14, in Samara. And her son-in-law was sitting in Ann Arbor in front of a glowing screen and couldn’t send a single line for twenty minutes already.

He wrote this: «On the day of the birth, Valentina Petrovna».

Natasha read through the shoulder, kept quiet, and said that mom would understand. Daniel crossed out the line.

Seven years and not a single letter

They have been married for seven years. Russian is able to hold a conversation at a level of «give,» «thank you,» and understanding for a third of the conversation, which he is even a little proud of. He learned to read Cyrillic at the wedding so that he could read the signs in Samara.

And I haven't even tried writing it once.

The Latin script in the greeting looks like a line from a declaration. The meaning will come through; the warmth will remain somewhere along the way. There is also something smaller that Daniel learned about later: there is no single way to write such a notation at all. The sound «sh» changes from shch to sch, from shh to shh, depending on which rule the person is using and in which year it was written. Natasha’s name on her passport, on her bank card, and in her phone book was written in three different ways, and he considered this to be the norm for many years.

Moreover, a sixty-five-year-old man who has been reading Cyrillic all his life understands the Latin text by letter by heart. Slowly. Like a child in the first grade.

Daniel searched for "russian keyboard setup" and found a hundred pages with identical screenshots.

The easy way, which the Internet recommends

It turned out that you have to choose from the second page, and it’s hard to undo that choice later.

The Russian keyboard is called YZUKEN, after the six symbols in the upper letter row. This arrangement came from typewriters from the late nineteenth century; by the mid-fifties, the scheme had evolved into its current form, and since then it has remained on any device sold in Russia. It is designed mercilessly. Where the finger is accustomed to A, the letter «f» is located. Under S is «y». Almost no letter matches the sound of the one drawn on the plastic.

The systems also offer a second option under different names. Windows calls it Russian — Mnemonic. macOS has been calling the same thing Russian — Phonetic for years, and in recent versions it is signed as Russian — QWERTY, which is why half of the online manuals are now lying. The meaning is the same everywhere: Cyrillic is arranged according to the sound, with «a» for «a», «b» for ‘b’, and ‘f’ for ‘f’.

The forum Daniel stumbled upon recommended this particular method. The logic is sound: you can start printing from the very first evening.

He took it.

Two weeks later he came to Natasha’s friends in Cleveland, sat down at their computer to show them the photos, and discovered that he couldn’t print at all. The Russian keyboard had a real layout with letters on the keys spaced out like this: YUKUKEN. Everything that his fingers had learned was exactly the same on his own laptop.

This is where the cost of the solution becomes apparent. Phonetic schemes are not standardized by anyone; Windows and macOS have different ones, and every Russian keyboard in the world, from computers owned by relatives to rental cars, is labeled the same way and not by sound. For those who write in Russian three times a year, all of this is irrelevant. But if the correspondence is to be constant, it’s better to swallow the difficult month at once.

Daniel switched schools in April. He fought a lot.

A few minutes in the settings

The installation itself takes no more than a couple of minutes anywhere, and all four systems are done with standard equipment, without the need to purchase anything. The names of the points have changed over the years, so the links below are for the current versions.

One mistake deserves a separate mention, because newcomers encounter it regularly. You can add the input language and change the interface language in the same window; the buttons are right there. The one who makes a mistake gets a system that speaks to them entirely in Russian, including the menu, notifications, and error messages. Everything comes back from there, but it takes a half hour of nerves.

The wife's laptop and the missing wrist

By May, Daniel was doing reasonably well and decided to finish writing his Easter greeting on Natasha's MacBook while his own was charging.

The first sentence broke at the comma.

Apple has been supplying its own Russian keyboard since the mid-1990s. The letters on it are the same as everyone else’s; the punctuation marks have moved: the period and comma have moved to the digital row and are now typed with a code; the letter «ё» has moved from its place; the hyphen is no longer where the hand is looking for it. On Windows, the period lives to the left of the right hyphen; the comma is typed there with a code. Two sets of movements, one head, and the head keeps stumbling.

It fixes one line in the list when installed. Among the Russian options on Mac is Russian – PC, which repeats the Windows letter-by-letter position and the sign in the sign. Natasha didn’t know about this line and typed it as she was used to, but Daniel, having set it for himself, unexpectedly found himself a family expert.

A phone without a solid signal

In the summer, the correspondence moved there, where it lives with everyone else.

On the iPhone, the Russian keyboard is the same and always YTCUKEN; Apple’s phonetic variant does not provide any options at all. Gboard has a wider list of keyboard layouts for Russian than the iPhone, so when adding a language, it’s worth checking the suggested options.

Daniel was writing about the trunk volume and got stuck.

There was no hard sign on the screen. It was soft, but there was no hard sign, and he pressed the keyboard three times before asking his wife. He hides under the soft key with a long press. The letter «e» is also revealed by holding down the «e.» The word «tour» is typed as o, b, holding down the soft sign, e, z, d, and knowing this habit turns a supposed glitch into a gesture for a second.

The auto-replacement struggled at first to work properly. It stubbornly substituted English words where a Russian word was typed, because the dictionary was connected with the active keyboard, and the phone still considered the previous language to be the primary one. After a week, it calmed down on its own.

Ghbdtn in a family chat

In August, he sent the word «Ghbdtn» into the general chat with Natasha’s family.

Everyone laughed, including Valentina Petrovna, who sent three crying smiley faces in response. This happens to everyone who writes in two languages, because the language indicator is small, the attention is taken by the text, and the opening comes after half a line. Sometimes after a paragraph.

A short word is easier to delete. The converters that are full of the browser help with the paragraph: you insert the text, the program recalculates it by key positions and gives the readable result; it works both ways. There are also programs that constantly monitor the input, they notice nonsense and switch the language themselves, and they also hold a hot key for the last word. They have their own character. From time to time, such a program switches where you didn’t ask, and it’s especially bad when it comes to passwords.

Daniel went with the other option. Windows has a setting that allows you to keep your language for each window, and since then the browser has remained in English, and the messenger in Russian.

Brackets for a New Year toast

By December, he volunteered to write a toast that Natasha would send to her relatives in advance.

It turned out that the text still doesn’t look Russian, even though all the letters are correct. It was a matter of details. In Russian, the brackets are made with bows, not straight English ones, and the long dash instead of a hyphen. There are no dedicated keys for them on standard layouts, and they are accessed using codes that are easier to keep handy than to remember.

The accent mark from the same handout came in handy later and unexpectedly for Daniel. Natasha started sending him lists of words with accents so that he wouldn’t say «zvOnit,» and it turned out that this accent was added on top of the already-written vowel, so he couldn’t insert it as a separate symbol.

The stickers he never bought

The plastic under the fingers remained English the whole time.

The stickers cost pennies and are sold everywhere. The transparent ones are applied over the Latin letters and add the Cyrillic characters on the side, while the opaque ones cover the key completely and are suitable for those who type English by sight. Both types wear out under the fingers in a few months and start to curl up at the edge. The engraving lasts for years, is made in a workshop and costs quite a bit.

Daniel didn't buy anything.

Both Windows and macOS have a built-in onscreen keyboard that displays the current layout in full and highlights the keys. It opens in a couple of clicks, sits in the corner, and doesn't come off anywhere. It lasted for a month on it, then I caught myself not looking at that corner for a week.

For those who need it three times a year

It’s worth mentioning separately those who don’t need any of this at all.

It’s not necessary to set up a keyboard for someone who writes in Russian a couple of times a year. Online keyboards work directly in the browser: the scheme is drawn on the page, the letters are typed with a mouse, and the finished text is copied anywhere. This also saves you trouble if you’re using someone else’s system, where you don’t have permission to install anything. For example, at a hotel or library.

Many people take voice input for granted as the final decision. Typing in Russian works decently if you select the language in the keyboard settings and speak in silence. It falters unpredictably: punctuation marks are spoken out loud, proper names are recognized intermittently, and on a working TV set it becomes a mess. And the person dictating the text doesn’t remember a single letter at all. Typing with your fingers also teaches you spelling, and the sound of this side effect doesn’t make it easy. However, speed comes with practice, and it’s easy to speed it up. keyboard trainer, where the race turns into a race against time.

Home

The Russian keyboard is installed by default in a few minutes; you don’t need to buy a separate Cyrillic keyboard for this. The choice is made before installation: the standard YUKEN is heavier at the beginning and is suitable for everywhere; the phonetic scheme is easy to learn and binds you to your machine. Both Windows and Mac owners should choose the Russian version for Mac – PC – otherwise the dot and comma will be lost. On the phone, you can replace the hard sign and the letter «ё» with a long press on adjacent keys. The characters on the plastic are easier to replace with the built-in on-screen keyboard, and the stickers can be bought later if you don’t remember them. If you need Cyrillic three times a year, an online keyboard in the browser is enough.

Where the technology ends

Daniel put together the greeting for next March himself, in ten minutes, with the Christmas trees and the right wording.

And I got stuck again, this time in a different place. It turned out that it’s more difficult to politely ask a mother-in-law for help than a wife, that the phrase that sounds warm in English translates dryly, and that the keyboard doesn’t offer any help in this regard.

At Palme School, classes take place online in small groups. Children from four to seventeen years old are taught different programs; those whose native language is Russian are taught separately, and those for whom the language is new are taught separately. For those over seventeen, a separate program is available. Russian language course for adults, where the exact same task is solved that neither the keyboard nor the applications can solve. You can learn about the format on two free lessons. In the first method, the tutor determines the level and selects a group; in the second, you take part in a real class with a teacher; the final decision is up to you.