I am learning German with a friend of mine, so we send texts in both German and English. I can send an umlaut (a/o/u with two dots above) to him, but when he sends to me it is replaced with a question mark. For example, when he sends me Grün, I receive Gr?n. Very aggravating.
I am using a Motorola XT1080 running Android 4.4.4 and using the native text messaging app. Can anyone tell me what setting I should look for? I think my buddy is using an iPhone, if that matters. Thanks much.
Android is Unicode-aware, and the native SMS app has no problems whatsoever in displaying German umlauts, regardless of the phone's language setting.
The problem most likely sits with your network provider and is therefore outside your reach (unless you can easily switch providers after making sure the prospective provider offers better character support).
If you have data access, what you can easily do is use an alternative messaging app. None of the major apps like Whatsapp (the most popular in Germany, so your friend might already have it) or Viber should have problems with Unicode.
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