About Keyboard Layout and Input Method Settings

Language:

You can configure Keyboard Layout preferences such as keyboard layout, keyboard model, and so on. The two main areas are:

Input Methods (IM) – Choose this method if you regularly use languages that have large number of characters or complex characters, for example Asian languages like Chinese, Japanese or Korean.
GNOME Keyboard Layout Preferences – Choose this method if you regularly use languages that have smaller number of characters, for example languages using Latin characters as English, Spanish, French, German, etc.

Although the IM provides a more complex mechanism for composing characters, it can be used also for Latin languages. Similarly, GNOME Keyboard Layout Preferences can be also used for non-Latin languages.

Note - Although you can set a variety of Keyboard Layout preferences, you don't need to configure all areas related to the keyboard. For example, if you use only one or two Latin keyboard layouts (For example, US/English and French), rather than activating IM. You can just set keyboard layouts in GNOME Keyboard Preferences. On the other hand, if you use Chinese or Japanese keyboard layouts, IM would probably be more suitable.