# difference between a French and English Mac



## corinthian (Oct 5, 2004)

Hey all,

I'm going to buy a Mac Mini, and i know a store has stock of FRENCH mini's but not english. Has anyone bought a FRENCH Mac before? What is the diffence, just the manuals included? I wont need the manuals anyway...

thanks!


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## daBoss (Jun 20, 2003)

corinthian said:


> Hey all,
> 
> I'm going to buy a Mac Mini, and i know a store has stock of FRENCH mini's but not english. Has anyone bought a FRENCH Mac before? What is the diffence, just the manuals included? I wont need the manuals anyway...
> 
> thanks!


Keyboard.


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## rogueToe (Dec 13, 2002)

LOL Minis don't come with a keyboard ...


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## daBoss (Jun 20, 2003)

rogueToe said:


> LOL Minis don't come with a keyboard ...


I guess I wasn't specfic enough. When you order you must choose the English keyboard. Documentation will be in French as will all the CD/DVDs. Of course, being a Canadian, you'll have no problem with our other official language.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

daBoss said:


> When you order you must choose the English keyboard.


You don't have to choose when you order. It's BYOK&M. You can just buy the CPU alone. 

The manual's online so what the hell, buy it! Just simply change the OS X language preferences once you boot.


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## IronMac (Sep 22, 2003)

Just in case, stick with the English one if that's the language you're most comfortable with. Every week that goes by means more minis are available.


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## TroutMaskReplica (Feb 28, 2003)

there is no difference. i'm using a french ibook right now because i got a good deal on a new one that nobody wanted. the installers were in french but at some point i was given the option to choose english, and haven't had any language irregularities since then.

the _only_ difference i've discovered is the bundled Appleworks 6 is in French. if you use Word like most people do that shouldn't be an issue.

on my iBook the keyboard is French, which means most of the punctuation keys are different - selecting U.S. keyboard layout cures that for touch typists - however, this doesn't apply to you since, as others have mentioned, the mini doesn't come with a keyboard.


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## corinthian (Oct 5, 2004)

daBoss said:


> I guess I wasn't specfic enough. When you order you must choose the English keyboard. Documentation will be in French as will all the CD/DVDs. Of course, being a Canadian, you'll have no problem with our other official language.


Ahem. Right. No problem with french.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

The major difference is it's in French ;-)

If it's a complete system, the KB is different. The Mac OS has always supported many languages pretty well so you can always change it to English (or lots of other languages) and away you go. If you have the French Canadian KB (which I believe is also different from the KB sold in France) the keys are labeled differently.

Where it might be an issue is with bundled software; you might end up with a dedicated French version rather than one that is multi-language and just localized for French (the localized version can be changed by the user but the dedicated one is going to be French forever). You could also find the preloaded software is a version behind; US English is updated first usually.


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## GWR (Jan 2, 2003)

La plus grande différence est avec les logiciels inclus. La plupart du temps ils sont en francais seulement. Normalement ca serait le clavier Canadien Francais qui serait la différence la plus évidente, mais le Mac Mini ne vient pas avec alors c'est surtout les logiciels inclus tel Appleworks, etc. qui serait en français seulement qui ferait la plus grande différence, tel que mentionné par gordguide en anglais.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

GWR said:


> La plus grande différence est avec les logiciels inclus. La plupart du temps ils sont en francais seulement. Normalement ca serait le clavier, mais le Mac Mini ne vient pas avec alors c'est surtout les logiciels inclus tel Appleworks, etc. qui serait en français seulement.


Wow! I think I understood this. Thank goodness for cereal box French.


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## Carex (Mar 1, 2004)

Since this is a Canadian mac board, I'm surprised that there aren't more responses in our other official language. 

Bienvenue GWR.


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## speckledmind (Jan 12, 2005)

corinthian said:


> Hey all,
> I'm going to buy a Mac Mini, and i know a store has stock of FRENCH mini's but not english. Has anyone bought a FRENCH Mac before? What is the diffence, just the manuals included? I wont need the manuals anyway...thanks!


Hi corinthian,

They call it French, because the system that has been installed is in French, the CD's that you will be provided with, can help you re-install the English System.

Regards,

Denis


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## TroutMaskReplica (Feb 28, 2003)

> can help you re-install the English System.


you don't reinstall the system. you just change the language settings in system preferences. i could change my computer to korean right now if i wanted to. or german. or english etc.


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