Changing the system languages in Macs are really easy. So if your friends / parents aren’t comfortable with your English system, you can always switch the language to suite their needs. Below is a step by step guide that will show you how to change the system language in Mac OS X.
Step 1. Click on “Apple Logo“, and then click on System Preferences
Step 2. In System Preferences; click on the International icon.
Step 3. As you can see at the right hand side of the window, it’s really easy to change the languages of your system.
Step 4. To demonstrate this functionality, I will change my system language from English to Simplified Chinese. All I have to do is to change the language order by dragging the Simplified Chinese on top of English.
Want to see the changes straight away without logging out? No problem. Click on the red button to close the International settings first:
Step 5. Click on the “Apple Logo”, and then click on Force Quit Finder:
Step 6. Select Finder and click on the Relaunch button:
Step 7. Click on the Relaunch button again:
Step 8. Now you should see the changes
———————————–
Note: You can find a lot more languages when you click on the Edit List button in the International settings, but not all of them can make changes to the system language. I think Mac OS X only carry mainstream languages.
我现在会换了,你,,,吾中意? 你吾中意?
Thank-you for the great procedure, and screenshots!
;D
Thank you David for the effort of explaining it comprehensibly to people like me!
I am creating a small application.
i need system language of the machine
how can i get the system language ?
How about for Mac OS 9??
Thank you very much.
It is really helpful.
this was very helpful! work at a company that offers software, but doesnt always hve macs available for troubleshooting!! (those bastards!)
tanks man thats so helpful!!!
I tried this exact thing and for some reason my computer is still set at spanish. It wasn’t like this when I first got my mac a year ago. I live in huntington beach, ca, and bought straight from a Mac store nearby. can anyone help?? my topmost language is english… even deleting spanish from the list does not work.. AS I TYPE THIS EVERY WORD HAS THE RED LINE UNDERNEATH IT.. PLEASE HELPP!!!
Thanks a million David!
We had a pakistani guest researcher who desperately needed to do dna sequence analysis on her ibook and it was pre-installed in swedish! The previous owner didn’t even know what I was talking about when I asked her for the OS X install dvd (that are usually needed to change the system language!).
[…] […]
[…] […]
thank you soooo much
thks a lot ))))
Dear,
I did just that, but I chose Portuguese.
Now when Finder launches, it quits almost immediately, just enough to blink the Finder menu.
If I return to English, then Finder behaves normally again.
Any idea of what I could do?
[…] change is for your entire Operating System. If you are on a Mac, then changing the system language is easy; that is directly linked to many installed programs such as Safari, so most of what you see on the […]