Mac won't recognize english keyboard

No guarantees, but try this. Open Applications>System Preferences>Keyboard and Mouse. At the bottom is a button, “Change Keyboard Type...” if you click it, you should get another window titled “Keyboard Setup Assistant.” It will tell you that the keyboard cannot be identified. Click the “Continue” button. You’ll be asked to press two keys. You’ll have three choices, including US ANSI, European, and Japanese. Select the appropriate one. After that, your keyboard should be usable.

Go to System preference, Keyboard & Mouse, Bottom left You see Key board modifier, Double click on key board modifier and you will see Select keyboard type in a rectangle box. Click on it and it will give two choices.

Happy Apple computing....

You need to go to System Preferences ----> International, and mess around in there.

I can't speak for a German Mac with an American English keyboard, but I am running a UK English Mac with an Italian keyboard, and everything is fine.

So something similar should work for you too.

I have a somewhat similar problem to the one in January. I think I accidentally kit a bad key combination. I think I was reaching for a Shift-e, but maybe hit Cmd-e (or maybe w or r or 3 or 4. Now when I try to get the AT-sign I get ! and Shift-1 gives me ¡. What should be a question mark comes out Ç. So it switched keyboard type, and I can;t (appostrophe gives 😉 cannot get it back to the standard ANSI keyboard. I went to Sys Prefs then Keyboard&Mouse then Keyboard. All that is there is adjustments for repeat rate and delay. There is a Modifier Key button below them but it just has the Shift, Control, etc key options. The help menu and one of the old messages on this forum from January, says to click on the Change Keyboard Type button. I would dearly love to do so, but there is no such button. Is there some alternate way to change the keyboard type back to ANSIÇ (er, question-mark). This is so frustrating¡! Maybe when they did this Leopard version, they left out that button -- is it on others with 10.5.6; how about others with earlier versionÇ
Any help will be appreciated -- it is difficult to survive in email with no ATsign!
Jack jack.fouquette@asu.edu (I had to copy and paste to get that)

What should be a question mark comes out Ç.

Go to System Preferences/International/Input Menu and make sure that only the box for US is checked. It sounds like you have Spanish active. Uncheck the box for that (and anything else besides US).

Yes, I did that. Everywhere I could find a language choice it said English (US), and I picked another language and then reselected EnglishUS. Still the Spanish type keyboard. But I just solved the problem! Even though the Language choice in International Preferences is English, that is apparently overridden by the language selector at the right top of the screen. The one with the flag. Sure enough the Spanish flag was displayed. I changed it to the US flag and the keyboard is back to normal.
Also, in Pogue's "Missing Manual" for Leopard, he said there was a Keyboard Viewer selection from the flag dropdown menu, but there was not one on mine. After messing around I discovered that if you go to the International pref, then Input Menu, you have to check the box for Keyboard Viewer for it to show up. I had been hunting for that viewer and finally found it.
Thanks for the suggestion, Tom. You were close. But I still wonder why there is no Keyboard changing button in my Keyboard and Mouse pref. Pogue doesn't mention one either.

But I still wonder why there is no Keyboard changing button in my Keyboard and Mouse pref. Pogue doesn't mention one either.

Because that is the wrong place to look for what you need. As I told you before, you go to System Preferences/International/Input Menu (NOT Languages). There you will find a list of keyboards. To make sure you will always have the right one for typing English, make sure that the box for US is checked and the one for Spanish is not checked.

If you have Spanish available in the "flag" menu at the top right of the Finder, that normally means that you did not uncheck its box in the Input Menu preferences. If you have two choices in the "flag" menu, it is easy to wind up accidentally switching them by doing Apple + space.

So the Help menu needs updating

I don't know. See this note:

http://ycode.blogspot.com/2008/01/change-keyboard-type-button-missing-in.html

In any case the Keyboard Type Button cannot help with the kind of problem you had.

had the same problem, wanted to switch from french azerty to US qwerty keyboard.
system preferences > international > input method > US (both US and US extended will get checked)

after doing that I had to go to the input method toolbar and change from US to US extended, after that it worked.

I bought US-international keyboard version but mac won't recognize it.

Do you mean you cannot type at all with it or it does not type correctly?

You need to go to System Preferences ----> International, and mess around in there.

You need to respond to Paul&Andrea rather than to me.

So the Help menu needs updating