the Netherlands. There has been a tendency in some countries that historically used the Fixed Do key notation or the German key notation to switch to the English system, especially among musicians working in popular music genres or jazz. The only case where this can lead to some confusion is when the letter B is used because it would not be clear whether the intention was for it to be understood as B (English system) or B (German system). Another tendency has been to use the English system in writing but to read it out according to either the Fixed Do or the German system if those are the systems used locally. For example, recent French scores or books may use the English system (this is especially common for chord symbols), but French users would read out that notation according to the Fixed Do system. Similarly, a Dutch musician may refer to a written F orally as Fis. This article is concerned with written usage. To form a key designation, locate the note name in the pitch translation table and add the major/minor qualifier from the lower table as needed. The 'major' alteration is usually superfluous, as a key description missing an alteration is invariably assumed to be major. In the German notation scheme, a hyphen is added between the pitch and the alteration (D-Dur). In German, Dutch, and Lithuanian, the minor key signatures are written with a lower case letter (d-Moll, d klein, d kleine terts). For example, to describe a song composed in a key of E-flat minor, one could say: E-flat minor (English) مي-بيمول الصغير (mi-bemol alsagheer) (Arabic) es-Moll (German) es klein (Dutch) (hen-ho tanchō) (Japanese) (naerim ma danjo) (Korean) Mi bemolle minore (Italian) Mi bémol mineur (French) Mi bemol menor (Spanish) Mi bemol menor (Portuguese) Ми-бемоль минор (Russian) Mi bemol minor (Romanian) Μι ύφεση ελάσσονα (Greek) Mi bemol minoras/es-moll (Lithuanian) References External links Table of the names of keys in French, German, Italian, and Spanish hosted by Yale University. Musical keys