Currently, I do most of my writing on my phone, so I cannot overemphasize the importance of the keyboard.
I have always been reluctant about changing my keyboard app. I consider it an essential commodity. That isn’t something I’m open to experimenting with.

Altogether, I think I’ve only used three keyboard apps. The Gboard of course is number one. It is the one I have used the longest and would recommend time and again.
Grammarly keyboard is the second. I used it to see how effective their checking ability is within the app. It stood up to the test.

The third keyboard is a speech writing keyboard. It is meant to make text-to-speech writing more effective.
The app is so effective, I never deleted it. Whenever I feel too lazy to type, I use it.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I am hardly ever too lazy to type. Yet, I can’t bring myself to uninstall it.

My preference for the Gboard over Grammarly keyboard is more about effective use over features.
Gboard adapts faster to my style of writing. That makes me type fast. I don’t have to think about Grammer rules, I just need to get it out first.

For Grammarly, I am always bothered about redlines. Once one shows up, I need to fix it immediately. This slows down my writing.
There is also the fact that I have the Grammarly add-on on my browser and word processor. I’ll check for corrections before publishing.

Last month, I purged my phone. While at it, I deleted all the extra languages I had downloaded on my Gboard.
In my opinion, since I mostly write in English, I can do without them.

I couldn’t be more wrong. My style of writing infuses the occasional pidgin and Yoruba.
Watching Gboard autocorrect my words into something unrecognizable is annoying. When it gets too confusing for autocorrect, it uses the dreaded red line. Then I’m back to correcting right away.

Worst of all, my Yoruba sentences were lacking the “ami oro”. The accent markers. The tonal markers.
How am I supposed to differentiate between ọwọ, owó, and owo? Ọrọ and òrò? Ọmọ and omo?
My words and sentences just felt “naked“.

You should know that I have reinstalled the language packs. This time, I even have the Edo pack to go along with Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and Pidgin English.
Turns out I need a multilingual keyboard after all.

Wilson Joshua is a Video Editor, Content Creator, and Creative Writer.
You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. @IJOSWIL

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