How to type in Hindi on Facebook, Twitter and Google+

Won’t you prefer if you could type in your native language rather in English?  If you could send emails to your mom in the native language she understands.

For instance, instead of writing “Mujhe pata hai ki tumhe Hindi mein type karna nahin aata hai”, wouldn’t you rather prefer “मुझे पता है तुम्हे हिंदी में type करना नहीं आता है.” Right.
(For those who don’t understand hindi, it means – “I know, you don’t know how to type in Hindi.”)

Don’t worry. I have found an easy solution for you. With this solution you would be able to type in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Arabic.

Here is the step by step guide for you. Below guide is written for Hindi as an example but the steps are the same for other languages too. This process doesn’t require you to install any software. It works with a shortcut in your browser (Chrome or Firefox etc.), known as Bookmarklet, provided by Google.

Transliteration Bookmarklet is a small piece of code that you store in your browser. Once stored, you can type in Hindi in any text box on any web-site of your choice. It works on any web-sites.
For example, you can use the bookmarklet to chat in Hindi in Gmail, send messages in Hindi to your friends on networking web-sites like Facebook and Orkut etc., or edit a Hindi Wikipedia article or even write a blog post in Hindi.

How to Type in Native Language:

Method 1:

• Point your browser to Google Transliteration.  You will see a big box where you can type phonetically in English.  The box will start converting the text in the chosen language.
• The text can be formatted with many other options available there.

Method 2:

• On the same page there is a link on the bottom for a Bookmarklet.  Click it.
• In your browser, just drag the link for your preferred language you need and drop it in your browser’s Bookmarks Toolbar or Favorite bar.
• Or right-click on the required link and select ‘Bookmark this link’ to create a bookmark.

After saving the bookmarklet, follow these steps to type in Hindi (for example) on any web-site:

• Click on the bookmarklet to activate it. You will see a message ‘Transliteration is now enabled…’
• Click on any text box where you want to type in Hindi. You will see a icon in the text box.
• Now start typing in English as you would speak them in Hindi and words will be transliterated to Hindi.
• You will see the words being converted into Hindi as you type.
• If you don’t like the way word is converted, just click on that word and select another option from the suggestions.
• Or you may choose to leave some words in English.  (Don’t we call it “Hinglish.”)
• If you want to stop typing in Hindi, just click on that bookmarklet again or press Ctrl+G inside the text box.

You may want to check out this small screen cast below to see this entire process live.

Please note, Transliteration lets you type Hindi words phonetically typed in English and then have them appear in Hindi. It doesn’t translate. It is the sound of words that are converted from one alphabet to other and not their meaning.

Thanks to Google for providing a tool like this.

Drop us a note to share your experience and how you plan on using this feature.