The keys in French
The keys are QWERTY on Flikzi’s honeycomb: hexagons with no gaps between them, in rows of 10, 9 and 7, each row half a key further in. They are the same keys in every Latin-script language. French’s own letters need no keys of their own: they come with the words, or from holding a letter.
The three rows
| Row | Keys, and what a flick down types |
|---|---|
| Top | q1w2e3r4t5y6u7i8o9p0 |
| Middle | a@s#d$f_g&h-j+k(l) |
| Bottom | z*x"c'v:b/n!m? |
A tap types the letter. A flick up types its capital, so there is no shift key. A flick down types the digit or mark shown under it. ?123 and ☺ are half keys at the two ends of the middle row. The comma is left of the bottom row; right of it are the full stop and enter. The space bar is below: swipe left on it to delete. Every gesture.
French letters
Touch and hold a letter and its other forms open above it. In French a held key offers its French letters: slide to one and lift. Most of the time you won’t need it, because the letters come with the words.
| Hold | It offers |
|---|---|
| e | éèêë |
| a | àâ |
| c | ç |
| u | ùûü |
| i | îï |
| o | ôœ |
Typing French on Flikzi
- Autocorrect that allows for a neighbouring key, a missed letter, an extra tap and swapped letters
- The word you are typing, and words that finish it, in the strip above the keys
- Next-word predictions after each space
- A flick up for a capital, a flick down for the digit or mark under the letter
- French’s own letters with the words, or from holding a key
- Your own words and phrases, learned on your phone
The keys are in QWERTY order, as on an English keyboard. Flikzi has no AZERTY layout, so if you type French on AZERTY today, a, q, z, w and m are in new places.
None of the French accents needs a key of its own. Type the word plain and Flikzi writes it as French spells it, apostrophe included: cest becomes c’est and jai becomes j’ai. The word it will put in leads the strip above the keys, and space or a full stop puts it in. Where the plain letters are a word too, as with ou and où, Flikzi goes by the words before and keeps the other one in the strip.
For an accented letter on its own, hold its key and slide: e offers é, è, ê and ë, a offers à and â, c offers ç, and o offers ô and œ. Type œ this way, because oe stays two letters. The apostrophe is a flick down on c.
With Flikzi Pro, the mic at the right end of the strip types by voice in French, when the speech recogniser on your phone has that language. Voice typing.
French with your other languages
A phone already set to French starts with it on. Otherwise pick French in Flikzi’s settings, under Language: the free version types one language, and French can be it. With Flikzi Pro, open Several languages to switch on as many as you use, then flick up on the left of the space bar to move to the next one, or flick up and hold for a picker. The space bar shows Français while you type French, and the picker lists it as FR.
Often typed with French: English, Spanish, Italian. All 23 languages.
Where the words come from
The word list comes from the Android Open Source Project’s LatinIME dictionaries (Apache License 2.0), with word counts and next-word data from the Tatoeba sentence collection (CC BY 2.0 FR). It all ships inside the app and runs on your phone, so nothing you type is sent anywhere. Open-source licences.
Questions
Is Flikzi’s French keyboard free?
Yes, if French is the language you type: the free version of Flikzi types one language of your choice, with every flick on the letters and the space bar. Typing French alongside other languages, and switching between them with a flick, needs Flikzi Pro, a one-time purchase of US$4.99 before tax. Every new install gets 14 days of Pro free.
Does Flikzi have an AZERTY layout?
No. Flikzi’s French keys are in QWERTY order. The accents come with the words or from holding a letter, so there are no accent keys either.
How do I type é on Flikzi?
Type e and let the word bring it: ete becomes été when you press space. For an é on its own, hold e, slide to é and lift.
Can I type œ?
Yes. Hold o and slide to œ; it comes after ô.
Does Flikzi send what I type in French anywhere?
No. The dictionary and the engine are inside the app, and nothing you type leaves your phone. Flikzi has no internet permission, so it cannot send anything. It asks for your contacts or the microphone only if you turn on contacts’ email addresses or voice typing, and it works without them.