My wife's laptop uses a QWERTY laptop which is a bit of a pain in the neck whenever I have to work with it. But worse than the other keyboard layout is that she hasn't set up any keyboard shortcuts and mainly uses the trackpad to control her laptop. Drives me nuts and she fears those moments when I have to work with her computer even for a small task ^^ Fun fact: I tried to learn Dvorak 20 years back but couldn't force myself to practice it sufficiently and stuck with QWERTZ. Thank God that I was forced to learn touch typing when I was 17 or SmarterGerman would not exist today.

What about you? Are you able to touch type (=blind.schreiben)? Which keyboard layout are you using? Share it with us in the comments below or the Community.

Video Summary

• A German typist in France types "Karambolage" on a French keyboard, a French typist in Germany types "Carambulage" on a German keyboard. Both result in Gibberisch .
• French and German computer keyboards are different, starting with "AZERTY" in France and "QWERTY" in Germany.
• The QWERTY layout originates from a solution to the 1870s typewriter's technical problem: keys jamming when adjacent letters were typed in quick succession.
• The layout was designed such that frequently-used letters in English were spaced apart.
• Christopher Latham Sholes, a publisher from Wisconsin, invented the typewriter with the QWERTY layout.
• All countries using the Latin alphabet initially adopted QWERTY, making modifications for accents and special letters.
• In 1928, Germany replaced the Y with Z (more common in German) to create the QWERTZ layout, which is used in Switzerland and parts of Eastern Europe.
• France replaced Q and W with A and Z, moving the M key up, resulting in the AZERTY layout.
• Though modern keyboards stem from a 19th-century issue, they persist primarily due to familiarity. Ergonomically, QWERTY/QWERTZ/AZERTY are inefficient, overburdening the left hand.
• The Dvorak layout, created in 1936, placed frequently used letters centrally for efficiency but never gained widespread adoption. Today, users can customize keyboard layouts on most computers.