How to Change the Language on Android Tablets (from Chinese to English)
Google’s Android operating system has built-in support for dozens of different languages, which makes switching the text of menus, notifications, and other items from Chinese to English, French, or other common languages pretty simple. But it’s always easiest if you already know how to speak (or read) the language you’re starting with. If you buy a Chinese tablet, for instance, and it arrives with Chinese as default language, it can be pretty tough to figure out how to change everything to English — unless you know where to look.
Then it’s pretty easy. Here’s how to change the system language of an Android device, even if you don’t speak the default language.
1. The first thing you need to do is open up the settings menu. To do this, just open the quick settings/notification menu — on Android 4.0 or 4.1, that will be at the bottom right corner of the screen. If you’re using Android 4.2, you can swipe down from the upper right corner or the screen.
2. Next, look for a settings icon. It should look like three bars with small ovals intersecting them:
Go ahead and tap it to bring up the Android settings panel.
3. From here, you should see a list of icons on the left side of the screen, followed by text (which may be incomprehensible). Look fot the Languages & input icon which looks like an A in a white box:
Tap that menu option to bring up the Languages & Input menu.
4. From the following menu, choose the very top option. It doesn’t matter if you can understand the text or not — it says “language.”
5. The following menu should show a list of languages, each as it’s described in that country. For instance, English is written as “English,” but German is “Deutsch.”
In other words, it should be very easy to find the language you understand — just look for it from the list of options and it should be immediately legible.
6. Once you tap your language option, the system language should change and you should be able to understand the rest of the system menus.
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Hi, I just bought a new Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 and I have some problems with changing the language. I have managed to change the language to English but still the news briefing, weather etc. are in Chinese? How can I change them into English? I also only have 3 language options (English, Chinese and Korean). Is it possible to get more options for languages? The keyboard option available is Samsung Chinese IME. How can I get rid of it and get some other keyboard options instead? I would very much appreciate if someone could help me with these questions.
Please send a screenshot of the Chinese news briefing and weather, we will have a look and help.
I have a Chinese Coolpad Phone that has Chinese only and no option for other languages. I need to change it to English. Any assistance in this regard would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Tinashe
If the phone is running Android then it should support a wide range of languages. try this.
Touch the “Settings” looks like a cog or gear icon
Then tap the “A” icon to open the Language & Keyboard menu.
Touch the top menu option to open the Select language menu.
look for the English setting, this should be listed in English if not open google translate set the target language to Chinese, type in English and look for the language with that icon.
Hope that helps. Let us know how you get on.