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How to change keyboard language in Windows

Mark Coppock
By

If you're multilingual or using a PC from a country that doesn't speak English, then you'll want to change your keyboard language accordingly. It's easy enough to do – just follow these steps.

In this article, we show the steps for changing your keyboard language in Windows 11, but the process for Windows 10 is much the same.

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

  • Windows 10 or 11

Changing your keyboard language

Step 1: Open Settings and navigate to Time & language.

Open Settings > Time and language.
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Step 2: Download the language pack that you require by clicking on Add a language under Preferred languages. This language pack can also be used as the display language, for text-to-speech and speech recognition, and handwriting. Type a language name in the search bar to pull up your chosen language quickly.

When you've selected your language, click Next.

Choosing a language pack.
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends
Related

Step 3: In the next box, select the optional language features that you want to include. Basic typing and optical character recognition are required, but the full language pack, text-to-speech, and handwriting are optional. You can also choose to change your Windows display language to the new one – just make sure you can read it in order to change it back to English if necessary.

Click Install when ready. The download and installation may take a few minutes to complete.

Install language features.
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

Step 4: Choose your language from the system tray. You'll find a small icon in the lower-right corner that will let you switch back and forth between languages. Just click on the language you want to use. You can also use the Windows + Spacebar key combination to quickly switch between languages.

Selecting a language.
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

You can change languages in specific applications as well. For example, Google Chrome lets you switch languages easily enough. Follow our keyboard layout guide to learn how to use your keyboard most efficiently.

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