Are you saying size matters?
This thread has me thinking I’d want to try a layout without a number row, but with a number pad on the right. There are few things I hate more than typing digits on the num row, and I’m fast and accurate af on the num pad due to early training entering massive amounts of numbers. I also love having an enter key in the bottom right-hand corner to MASH without having to aim, which I do embarrassingly often out of frustration after entering the wrong password too many times.
The top alphas or the numpad could double as the standard ! @ # $ etc.
Hmmm…
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Whats harder to type on a 40%, mandarin, cantonese, or english?
I mostly agree. I’m also not yet at 40%. I love my Iris, it’s more like a 50% board.
But in principle I think it is not that difficult to get rid of the number row.
Either learn how to type numbers on a numpad and put that numpad on some layer.
Or just put the numbers on a separate layer, but for example on the home row or the top row on the smaller keyboard. Mentally it is relatively easy to learn that, the row is just closer than is used to be.
I think most people need to go through a similar downgrade where they learn how to live with a couple less keys at a time. Maybe we need some keyboard renting service designed to help people try out new keyboards. Just make sure to use pbt keycaps and clean every board that comes back.
BTW it is a little bit more than 40%
but this
Looks to me like the sweetspot for most uses cases. I think one could make it smaller (closer to 40%) and it would be still enough for a lot of use cases.
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Type Chinese (no matter mandarin or cantonese) are a bit more complex than type English, because we need use number choose the Chinese characters when we type the uncommon word.
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40% is insufficient for any indo-european language (except english), let alone mandarin and other complex Asian languages.
There is no way you cram German (or any other ISO) layout on such board withot using second layer.
It’s possible to fit all German alphas (and other ISO languages) on a Planck if you’re willing to get rid of some of the mods on the right hand side. But a Planck has some more keys than a “true 40%”, so that might be cheating 
I mean, you can’t cram ansi onto a 40% keyboard without using a second layer, so I don’t understand your point.
You could have all alphas and punctuations (those important ones), and this is what matters in daily life.
But, if I have to press F key five times just to finish one regular sentence, than you start to realize 40% layout is basically useless.
Well you press the shift key upwards of 5 times in many sentences, so maybe its not as bad as you think. Maybe you’d just need to find a more comfortable position for the layer key.
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With Japanese rōmaji input, you pretty much just need the alpha keys and a ‘convert’ key, which is often the spacebar. I guess you’d also need a key to input the long vowel marker for foreign words rendered in katakana, too, and then a few punctuation keys would be convenient.
In any case, a 40% might be pretty effective for Japanese, perhaps even more so than for English. 
edited to add: I have no experience with typing in Korean, but it looks like the standard layout has all the hangeul on the alpha keys. Maybe Korean would work on a 40% just fine, too. I’m sure someone on Keebtalk with actual Korean knowledge can chime in 
Plank makes it super easy to have a numpad style on a layer on a 40%
Typing on a ut47 here. I would agree with 40% not being feasible for work, but then there is QMK. I started off with TKL, then 60%. When you get familiar with QMK you start having redundant keys fast. For instance, I’ve mapped backspace key for ctrl + alt + del because I can’t come up with anything more useful for me there. At first, special characters from the numbers row were tricky, but then I realized I could map them to my native language layer letters that don’t have accents and now I don’t ever need to press a number with another modifier. What I would recommend is having less layers and really focus what you need the most rather than organizing the layouts ‘neatly’. For instance I have all the braces and other programming stuff on my nav layer and this combination is far more convenient than a full size layout.
i just got a planck from the goodwill guy and was like well this thing is fucking useless. but then i started thinking about how i can use some sneaky QMK tricks and am very interested in bringing it to work tomorrow and seeing how it goes. I am a designer so a lot of the left side shortcuts and arrow keys are important to me. but i think switching up the default layout to what i want will make it far more feasible for a daily driver.
i mainly got it because it was cheap and i wanted to try ortho layout and get an xd75. and man am i fan of the ortho layout, it is so much more comfortable for me
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I just had a thought. A 40% could be pretty good for typing on a smartphone when you’re tired of the autocorrect mistakes and/or poor gesture typing predictions 
The standard onscreen keyboard is already pretty much a 40%! Now if someone could make a case with a USB Type-C dock-like connector so I can just pop in my Pixel XL and start shitposting chatting with keyboard enthusiasts 
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I have no problem switching back and forth between Planck and 60%. What I do have problem with is the extra cognitive load from layout complexity which make it harder to get into the flow while programming (it’s just fine for general typing).
So these days I just put my main driver 60% in a plastic case when I need to travel.
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ive only spent 3 days with the planck so far and am finding the same. i can use it just fine, but being required to stop and think about how to get a certain symbol, or key combo with keys on different layers is just not that pleasant to me. its great for general use though, but design and code are a bit of a struggle at least at first
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