If you’re someone who has an iPhone, then one of the things that you might have noticed about these devices is how versatile and adaptive they are. Apple has been so successful in marketing and selling them to a wide cross-section of the population because of the multitude of features that comes with each one. Each new version seems to have more tools and adjustments that you can make. One of the alterations that can be made with the iPhone is the changing of the featured language. Let’s talk about why you’d want to change the language for your iPhone and how you can go about doing that.
Why Would You Want to Change Your iPhone Language?
The first and most obvious reason that you’d want to change the language on your iPhone is that English is not your native tongue. There are plenty of foreign nationals living in the US, and they’re going to be glad of the chance to set their iPhone to the native language with which they feel the most comfortable.
You might also be bilingual or speak several different languages. In that case, it could be that you speak English fluently, but you’re more comfortable with something else. Another situation that could arise is that you’ve just bought an iPhone used from someone, and they have the language set to something that you don’t speak fluently. That could be ample reason to want to change the language settings.
You might also be in the process of giving or selling your iPhone to a friend or relative. Either you or they might prefer a different language than the one the iPhone is currently displaying. Until you make that change, you won’t be able to access the full functionality of the device.
Now, let’s go over how you can make that change.
Step-by-Step Guides for Changing the Language on an iPhone
First, you’ll open up the Settings app on your iPhone. You can do so by tapping the icon, which looks like a gray box with gears in it. Scroll down and hit General. It has a gear icon in pale gray to its left.
You’ll now scroll down and hit Language and Region. There are several options that you’ll notice at this point, an indication of how Apple sees itself as a true multinational brand. Some of the options include Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Russian, and Chinese. You’ll also notice French, German, Portuguese, and others.
Next, you will tap iPhone Language. This will open the language options menu. Tap on the language that you would prefer. You can tell that you have done so correctly when a small blue checkmark appears next to that language. On the top right-hand corner of the screen, hit Done.
A prompt will come up asking if you want to Change to Language. Tapping this box will cause your screen to go black for a few moments as the device makes the necessary adjustments. It will take a few seconds more for the device to go back to the Language and Region screen. When you get there, you should see that all of the language appearing on the screen has switched over to the one you have selected.
Now, you or someone else can enjoy the device with the new language featured. If you ever want to switch it back over to English or something else, you can just repeat this process. There isn’t a limit to the number of times that you can change the language on an iPhone.
A Few Other Details About Changing an iPhone’s Language
There are a few details that you should keep in mind as you execute this maneuver. The first is that changing the language in your iPhone is going to cause the language to change with all native apps, which is to say all the apps that came preinstalled on your phone. For certain websites, though, the language might not automatically change.
Also, if you have jailbroken your phone to use apps that did not come from the App Store, then there is no guarantee that the language will have changed for those. Jailbreaking is when you or another individual uses a computer program to fundamentally alter your iPhone’s software. We don’t recommend that you ever do that, but it is something that some individuals do.
One more item worth mentioning is that some languages are meant to be read from right to left. If you have changed your iPhone’s language to one of those, then don’t be surprised when some of the horizontal screen options will be reversed.
Changing the iPhone’s Language for Different Spellings
There is one more reason that you might choose to change the language on your iPhone temporarily. That is if you wish to compose emails, notes, or anything else in a different dialect. For example, both America and the UK speaks English, but some of the word spellings and sentence structures are different.
If you want to compose anything in English, but you want the UK spellings rather than the American ones, changing the iPhone’s language will allow you to do that. The spellchecking dictionary will have changed, which you’ll find convenient. You can switch back to the Americanized version of English any time you want.
What About Toggling Between Different Languages on Your iPhone?
There might also be a scenario where you want to toggle rapidly between different languages on your iPhone without completely switching over from one to another. That is possible, as well. To do so, you’ll need to go to Settings and then General. Scroll down to Language and Region.
From there, you will notice an option that says Add Language. As is the case when you are switching from one language to another, there’s a long list of options. Scroll down until you see the one you want, and tap to select it. You can add multiple other languages if you like.
Once this is done, your instructions and apps will still appear in your default language. However, you can spellcheck and dictate in the other languages that you selected. Your keyboard can toggle between those languages that you checked. To do so, hit the little globe icon that you see on your keyboard.
There is one more way to switch languages quickly when you have multiple ones active on your iPhone. Go to the Language and Region menu and hit Edit. It is in the upper right-hand corner. There is a three-bar icon next to the language that you want to make primary. Tap and hold it. Then you can drag that language to the top of your list.
You should see a pop-up asking if you want to confirm the language change. Hit it to verify that you do, and your phone will update its settings. You can learn to quickly go back and forth between languages this way if it is something that you are interested in doing.
Does Changing the iPhone’s Language Change Siri?
Another critical point to make is that the language of the Ask Siri feature on your iPhone does not change when you switch your preferred language. It will continue speaking to you in English even as the text on your phone is in a different language.
To change the language that Siri speaks and understands, you must go to Settings, then Siri and Search. Tap Language in the Ask Siri menu. Choose a new dialect and language from the list to which Siri should respond. The voice assistant will now speak to you in that language as well. You can also tap Siri Voice to change genders from male to female if you like. Siri’s default voice is male.
As you can see, the iPhone’s remarkable versatility in this area indicates how much work went into crafting this piece of machinery. You can easily change the language features as often as you like so that you or whoever else is using the phone in question gets the most benefit out of it in any situation.
