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Keyboard Shortcut to Change Language

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If you are multilingual or find yourself working on a keyboard that is different from what you're used to, it can be very frustrating to have to click around your screen in order to get your computer to recognize and accept the use of a "foreign" language. Luckily, Windows offers a very simple way to toggle back and forth between registered languages using a keyboard shortcut.

How To Change Your Keyboard Layout on Windows

After you enable the keyboard layout for two or more languages on a Windows operating system, you can either use the Language bar or a keyboard shortcut to switch between languages that use different keyboard layouts.

By default, the Language bar appears in the taskbar along the bottom of a Windows screen upon registration of two or more keyboard layouts. The Language bar will not be shown if only one language is registered or if a user has elected to hide it. To switch keyboard layouts using the Language bar, click on the language abbreviation on the screen. ("French," for example, is abbreviated as "FR," while "English" appears as "EN.") A menu of registered keyboards will appear. Simply select the desired language to change keyboard layouts.

If you'd like to make this process even easier, you can also just press the [ALT] + [Shift] keys simultaneously to toggle between keyboard layouts.

Image: © Elxan Nagiyev - Shutterstock.com
Jean-François Pillou

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