This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
It is nice that windows 8 added a mnemonic Russian keyboard.
Unfortunately there are three letters which I can not find: щ, ч and э.
These three letters exist in the standard Russian keyboard. They are at the following location (in the US keyboard): o,x and '.
Without these three letters the mnemonic keyboard is useless
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
You just need to type multiple keys to get to those letters: For example some (not all) of them:
sh -> ш
ch -> ч
jo -> ё
je -> э
And this is just awesome. This means you just type the way it sounds and Russian letters just magically produced.
Chego eschjo xhelat'? -> Чего ещё желать?
Note that the left hand side is quite readable as is.
It is nice that windows 8 added a mnemonic Russian keyboard.
Unfortunately there are three letters which I can not find: щ, ч and э.
These three letters exist in the standard Russian keyboard. They are at the following location (in the US keyboard): o,x and '.
Without these three letters the mnemonic keyboard is useless
One not very obvious aspect is the way the combination "ые" is typed, by the way. You actually need to hit the spacebar after typing [English] 'y', so that the keyboard knows you are in fact typing 'ы' and not the first element of ’э', which is entered using the English key sequence 'ye'. By contrast, if you want to type 'ые’ (as in 'красивые') you need to type '[krasiv]y[spacebar]e.'
Was frustrating for me before I figured that one out...
BTW, I should add that I have tried shutting down /restarting, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. There's still no way to switch between ENG and RUS (and no indicator in the tray that there are multiple languages installed).
If I choose the 'mnemonic' option under 'add an input method,' the icon shows up in the tray, and I can switch between languages. So that's still working.
Thanks very much, Paul. I appreciate your patience and helpfulness.
Good to know about the cosmetic issue. Yes, both English and Russian show up as options, but there's no way (evidently) to switch between them. Neither the windows/spacebar nor the old left-alt shift option works.
"But when I have 'Russian' selected, it still shows up as grayed out - and won't let me preview it, for example"
This apparently is a good sign! Because it's a known - cosmetic really - issue that when one installs phonetic layout which was made earlier under Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7 then Preview does not work.
I do start my phonetic instruction with that note about that non-important, cosmetic issue under Windows 8, please look:
http://winrus.com/kbd\_e.htm#p1251
So it tells us (along with 419 entry you made a screen-shot of) that we successfully added phonetic layout and registered it successfully as "Russian".
a) when you go to Control Panel - Languages, do you so _both_ English and Russian there?
(it's only when you click on "Russian" you get the screen you provided in your screen-shot)
If you do have English and not just Russian:
try to re-start Windows to let it 'catch up' with those changes and to present you ENG / RUS indicator
Paul
