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How to change the language on an iPhone or iPad
There are many reasons why you’d want to change the language on an iPhone or iPad. Perhaps you bought it second-hand from someone and it’s in the wrong language, or perhaps you’re learning a new language yourself and want to get more comfortable. Whatever your reason, changing languages in iOS or iPadOS is a breeze.
QUICK ANSWER
To change the language on your iPhone or iPad:
- Go to Settings > General > Language and Region.
- Tap Add Language and select the one you want. You'll be asked if you want to make your primary.
- If applicable, back at the Language and Region menu, drag languages around in the Preferred Languages list using the handle (triple-line) icons.
- To delete unwanted languages, tap Edit on the same screen. You need at least one active language.
JUMP TO KEY SECTIONS
Which languages does iOS 16 support?
As of August 2023, iOS supports the following system languages. More will likely be added in the future, in which case we’ll update this list.
- Arabic
- Bulgarian
- Catalan
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese, Traditional (Hong Kong)
- Chinese, Traditional (Taiwan)
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English (Australia, Canada, UK, US)
- Finnish
- French (Canada, France)
- German
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Kazakh
- Korean
- Malay
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese (Brazil)
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Romanian
- Russian
- Slovak
- Spanish (Spain, Latin America)
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Vietnamese
How to change the language on an iPhone or iPad
Go to Settings > General and scroll down to Language and Region. Tap that option.
Next, tap Add Language and select the one you want. You can use the search field up top to narrow things down. When you pick something, you’ll be asked whether you want to set that as your primary language.
Back at the Language and Region menu, you can drag any language you’ve added around the Preferred Languages list using the handle (triple-line) icons. The language at the top is always the primary. To delete unwanted languages, tap the Edit button. You need at least one active, for obvious reasons.
You can also change your region, calendar type, temperature unit, measurement system, and the first day of the week. You’ll see samples of those changes at the bottom of the screen.
FAQs
If you add a language using the method outlined above, then it will immediately be added to the iPhone keyboard. To switch the iPhone keyboard to that language, just tap the globe icon in the bottom-left corner. But if you intend to switch between languages often while typing, you should install Google’s excellent Gboard.