Write Well: Using Diacritics — Essential Special Characters in any Language

If you leave them out, you might save time, but a lot of readers will think you're an amateur. Here's how to make them on most devices

There are essential special characters in most languages besides English, and as a writer or content creator, you are obligated to include them when you write. They’re known as diacritics or diacritical marks. People often use diacritic interchangeably with accent, but accent marks are a subset of diacritics. These phonetic symbols are not optional, and they change the entire meaning of words. But fear not! It’s pretty easy to use diacritics quickly and efficiently. Don’t skip the diacritics.

Diacritics, what they are, what they do, who needs them?

Suppose you’re writing the dramatic climax of your magnum opus, wherein Don Diego Del la Vega dispenses with the villain Count Armand. Since you write in English, there’s no worry about accents, tildes, umlauts, or cedillas. “Listen to me, Villain,” says Zorro. “Your end is near.” Easy peasy.

But the Count, who doesn’t speak English, retorts, “Ah, pero senor, mi papa tiene 53 anos y sobrevivire a eso!”

mi papa

Um. Something is not right. I promise the Count did not have that in mind as his bold comeback. What would he care about potatoes? Rosetta Stone tells us,

“…if, for some reason, you need to tell someone how old your father is. It should be written as, Mi papá tiene 53 años, but if you forget the accent marks and write Mi papa tiene 53 anos, you’ve gone from “My father is 53 years old” to “My potato has 53 assholes.”

Diacritics are common in Latin-based languages, like French, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish. Many marks indicate pronunciation differences, but they can also clarify homonyms, words with similar spelling but different meanings. If you’ve ever looked at Russian, Greek, or even Vietnamese, those marks are obvious in every sentence. Interestingly, Arabic uses diacritics with vowels and consonants.

None of us want to waste time when we’re busy performing our craft, so why not skip over these little ticks and move on? People will get you, right? Wrong. Readers notice details. Many, many readers speak Spanish in today’s world, and more of them understand a bit of Spanish, a smidgin of Greek, or a soupçon of French. (See what I did? I slipped in a diacritic.) Your reputation will suffer if you cheat, and it’s not that tough to find and use tools to type these symbols. Read on and find out how to not skip the diacritics.

Looking at some common diacritics

Now that you know what we’re talking about, I’m thinking you remember seeing these from time to time in various languages used in writings.

é — acute accent (right slant)

ë/ï/ü — trema

ç — cedilla

ü — diaeresis, AKA umlaut

â/ê/î/ô/û — circumflex

ñ — tilde

à/è/ì/ò/ù — grave accent (left slant)

Å — ring or Bolle

Ø- slash, solidus, or virgule

How to make these dots, circles, slashes, and wiggles in MS Word or Google Docs

You can, of course, search web articles until you find the symbol you need, then copy it and paste it into your document. If that makes you happy, carry on. But let me whisper in your ear, “You don’t have to.”

If you write poetry, odds are you’ll use poetic language, maybe words derived from French like été for summer’s warmth. In novels, adding color often means setting the story in a dramatic location like Barcelona, and you’ll surely need your hero to summon the policía. If you’re into non-fiction, you can’t write about people like François Mitterrand without his cedilla.

In Microsoft Word or Google Docs — three clicks, and you’ve got it. In Word, select INSERT from the menu bar in your document, then choose SYMBOLS. That pulls up a chart of special characters and a drop-down menu for different languages. Using Google Docs? Choose INSERT, then SPECIAL CHARACTERS, and so forth.

With the United States-International keyboard layout for Windows, you can type international and special characters via key combinations and the ALT key. The Verge shows you how step-by-step. Generally, takes minutes to set it up, and then never hunt for special characters again.

Using ALT KEY CODES to type language special characters

Unless you use a Chromebook, you should be able to access a spiffy set of codes that can reproduce hundreds of marks, including diacritics. If you haven’t used these, I’m telling you — investing a half hour exploring them will make you feel like a wizard. My gift to you is a complete set of ALT codes — bookmark them! These codes are usually accessed by combing the ALT key with a sequence of letter or number keys to produce all kinds of diacritically marked letters.

Here are some very useful examples to print and tape to your workstation.

ALT codes to print and save

How to type accents on your smartphone or mobile device

I can’t comprehend typing anything longer than a text on a mobile device, but sometimes you gotta have an accent in a text. So if you’re an iOS fan, add a keyboard to your phone, or use the OPTION key on a Magic Keyboard. You can also use the onscreen keyboard. Touch and hold the letter, number, or symbol on the keyboard related to the character you want — to type é, touch and hold the regular “e” key. Slide your finger across until you can choose the accent you want.

If you’re an Androider, keep reading.

Making accents on your Android device

It’s not much different with Android. Here’s the complete instruction, but simply put, press and hold the related key, slide your finger, and you’re done. However, if you use a Chromebook, you may become annoyed, as I did, when you learn that your only option seems to be Unicode for essential special characters. To use them, refer to the chart below.

Now, press and hold CTRL, SHIFT, and the letter “u” altogether. Release them simultaneously, and you will see that you have printed a “u” in your document with no trailing space; add the correct code after the “u.” You’ll now see the accented letter. The horrible part is you have to memorize the codes or reference the chart below. Yes, it’s unwieldy. I swear, last year, a Chromebook update included a Unicode accent picker, but I was unable to find it today. If you have better information, please comment below.

Essential Special Characters in any Language

So now you know that it isn’t all that tough to use accents, umlauts, and cedillas. Out of respect for all languages and all readers, credible writers and content developers make it their business to include diacritics appropriately as they work. I was motivated to publish this piece when a writer said on social media that she was using some Spanish words in a composition. She considered omitting the phonetic marks since they were difficult to wrangle. I was taken aback, but I understand the issue. If this has helped you out to an extent, I have done my job. ¡Qué bueno! (Ah, good!)

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