By Steve Rindsberg and Geetesh Bajaj
There are many reasons why you may need to install another language in Microsoft Windows. You may need to use a font in another language or you may have a larger need. Whatever the reasons may be, it’s easy to add another language. We are using Windows 10, but the process should work similarly in other versions of Windows.
Follow these steps to get started:
- Click the Start menu in Windows, or press the Windows key. Doing so will bring up the Start menu, as shown in Figure 1, below. Click on the Settings button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1.
Figure 1: Start menu in Windows 10- The Settings window shows up, as shown in Figure 2, below. Click the Time & Language option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2.
Figure 2: The Settings window- Doing so brings up the Language settings window, as shown in Figure 3, below. Click the Language option in the left pane, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3. Next, click the Add a language option, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 3.
Figure 3: Add a language- Doing so will bring up the Choose a language to install window, as shown in Figure 4, below. You can either scroll down and click the language you’d like to install, or you can type the first few characters of the language. In our case, we typed in Ja, and then chose Japanese, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4.
Figure 4: Choose a language to install- Once you choose a language, the Next button is no longer grayed out. Click the Next button to proceed.
- In the subsequent Install language features screen, you can choose whether you want to install Text-to-speech, Speech recognition, and Handwriting options. We deselected these options, as shown in Figure 5, below. Make choices as needed and click the Install button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 5.
Figure 5: Install language features- Once the install process completes, you can close any open dialog boxes. Now, at the right end of the Windows taskbar, you should see a button representing the current default language. In Figure 6, below, you can see that the default language is set to ENGlish, as shown highlighted in red. Click on this icon to choose from any other languages you’ve installed. You’ll notice that we just installed Japanese, as shown highlighted in green within Figure 6.
Figure 6: Japanese installed as a language in Windows 10
Although the steps shown on this page are for installing Japanese, the process for any other language works in the same way.