US-International keyboard setting
@mrboilwash: the default keyboard setting in Control Panel in Windows is "US" here in USA. However, one can select "US-International" instead. This allows the user to create all additional characters used in Western European languages using an American keyboard. It is useful for those who use other European languages and who know the US keyboard by heart. I.e. Americans such as myself, and also immigrants from Europe who now know the US keyboard by heart (touch typing) who need to send e-mail or write in a non-English language.
German characters are made as follows:
ä ö ü: type " and then the vowel. US-International setting automatically adds an umlaut to the vowel. If you DON'T want an umlaut (say, you are writing a quotation, the first letter is a vowel but you don't want an umlaut example "Every good boy does finely"), you hit the space bar between the " and the vowel and it stops the umlaut. This only happens with vowels. With consonants, there is no need to hit the space bar.
ß: hold down the Right Alt key and type s, it makes ß. The left Alt key does not work for this function.
å (Swedish): Right Alt plus w
á é í ó ú as used in Spanish, French: hit ' (apostrophe) and then the desired vowel. ñ is Right Alt plus n
ø and æ in Danish and some forms of Norwegian is Right Alt plus l or z.
This may seem like a lot of memorize, but German users basically only need to memorize " plus vowel or Right Alt plus s to write anything in German. For those who have used an American keyboard for years (and know where the letters are by touch), this is the fastest way to write correct German.
When I was at university, in the typewriter era, you are correct, our typewriters could not make German characters.
For ß there were three alteratives:
1. leave a space where ß would be written and write the ß by hand
2. type a B and "pretend" it was ß
3. type it as "ss". This was acceptable in typewritten work, however on a written examination you had to write ß in the proper places and "ss" was not accepted. Our professors taught Hochdeutsch, not Swiss German, so one was expected to know the difference between ß and ss, and the correct usages.
Making umlauts was easier. You could backspace on a typewriter and type " and it was almost look like an umlaut. This was acceptable for typewritten work, or else you could add the dots by hand after the typing was completed (but then you might forget to add an umlaut by hand, so it was better to stop and backspace right away and add the umlaut.
Another alternative is to write "ae" "oe" and "ue" instead of ä ö ü and it is assumed that the person who reads your message in Europe knows that you don't have ä ö ü on your keyboard and understands what you would have typed had you used a European keyboard. Most of my European friends who visit and use my computer to write home use this method, because they don't bother to learn to use the US-International keyboard technique. (it only makes sense if you use a US keyboard daily and know the letters by memory). At university, however, this was NOT allowed and we used the methods described above.
Because I e-mail friends in Germany, Scandinavia, and occasionally in Spanish (I do not know French at all), I keep my computer keyboards on US-International setting by default.
At the time I was in university, the German government really wanted to promote the study of German in countries abroad. As a result, our textbook prices were actually subsidized by I believe 15-20% by the German government to make them more affordable. I don't remember whether they paid the publisher or distributor or bookstore, but I do remember that our German textbooks were noticeably less expensive than those in say Spanish or French.
