iOS 13 keyboard language switching

Good afternoon Full_Mountie,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!

I understand you recently updated to iOS 13.2 and noticed that your international keyboards are not automatically switching as they did before. The feature has not changed, but it has always been limited to the two most frequent languages that you use. Other than those two languages, you can manually switch as you type. If you have updated your iOS to the most recent version, check to make sure the language apps that you use have been updated to their most recent version as well.

Take a look at the resource below. I've highlighted some key information here for you. Click the link for complete details.

Use international keyboards on iPhone - iPhone User Guide - iOS 13

"If you’ve added keyboards in other languages, you can type in two languages without having to switch between keyboards. Your keyboard automatically switches between the two languages you type in most often. (Not available for all languages.)

1. Go to Settings  > General > Keyboard.
2. Tap Keyboards, then do any of the following:

• • Add a keyboard: Tap Add New Keyboard, then choose a keyboard from the list. Repeat to add more keyboards.
  • Remove a keyboard: Tap Edit, tap  next to the keyboard you want to remove, tap Delete, then tap Done.
  • Edit your keyboard list: Tap Edit, drag  next to a keyboard to a new place in the list, then tap Done.

If you add an international keyboard, the corresponding language is automatically added to the Preferred Language Order list. You can view this list and add languages directly to it in Settings > General > Language & Region. You can also reorder the list to change how apps and websites display text."

Take care.

This does not work. My most frequently used keyboards are of course my native language and emojis. When I'm trying to learn Japanese, Duolingo used to open the appropriate keyboard when it wanted a response in a specific language. Now it opens the last keyboard I used, which is the worst possible option given that it's lessons often alternate between wanting english and japanese answers.

This update has made Duolingo unusable in its current state. I curse the day I updated and will scour the web for a way to roll back. Please report this issue up the ladder.

Okay, so I've done some further investigation.

• Installed iOS 13.2.3. No change.
• Uninstalled all keyboards *except* English + French + Emoji. Problem solved - switching now automatically occurs between English and French.
• Reinstalled Spanish keyboard. Problem is reintroduced. It won't auto-detect langue so auto-correct doesn't work.
• Uninstalled Spanish. Problem solved again.

So it seems like if you have *only* two language keyboards installed (plus Emoji) then it's fixed. But of course, this is a workaround as the behaviour is still diminished from iOS 12. And if you *need* three language keyboards, it's not fixed at all.

I have now updated to 13.2.2 This issue has still not been fixed. Duolingo support says that it is an ios issue. My second most used keyboard is Russian and the automatic switching definitely stopped as a result of updating to ios13. Is this a bug that anyone is working on?

It is even crazier if you have 3 languages installed. Then it not only doesn’t switch but will spell check in languages not selected.

I thought to use Duolingo I’d just erase the one I am not using and that should fix it. Nope. And it does something else ever crazier. I used English and Italian, the latter for Duo. When I was done I deleted Italian and put Spanish back as the second keyboard as I use normally. Now in Duo if I want to “select” or “select all” the selection boxes come up in Italian while writing in Spanish and the Italian keyboard isn’t even installed!

In other apps such as messenger it switches as it sees fit. Mostly right but can go crazy at random.

This is definitely an iOS issue since 13.

Exactly the same here as others have reported and no fix as far as I can tell. I'm in an international team on SimCity BuildIt, and regularly swap between English and French. The keyboard used to automatically detect which language and (for the French parts) it would apply the appropriate accents as part of the auto-correct function. Used to work a treat. No intervention needed by me. Now I need to manually apply the keyboard each time I swap languages. Really, really, really annoying. Major step backwards and I couldn't care less about the new keyboard features in iOS 13. Wishing it were easy to go back.

I just updated my iPhone to 13.2.3 (from 12.something) and then noticed this problem. I wish I could undo the update. It's really annoying having to manually switch languages several times during a lesson - and if I forget to do it, I end up accidentally teaching (for example) Spanish words to the English keybord or vice versa. Please fix this.

I have 11 different keyboards, and Duolingo always switched to the correct one before this update.

I have the exact same problem. I updated from iOS 12 to iOS 13 on my iPhone. Previously on iOS 12 the language keyboard would automatically switch. I have four keyboards and it used to switch seamlessly between each especially when I used DuoLingo.

Now with iOS 13 the keyboard just stays stuck on whatever keyboard was last used. iOS 13 stinks. If anyone is still on iOS 12 and reads this, don’t update to 13.

Totally. Anyone notice how the support response went very quiet since so many others are experiencing identical behaviour in iOS13? As I said earlier, it's fixed if you ONLY have two language keyboards installed.

Major step back. Have sat through three or four iOS upgrades waiting for this to be fixed and it's still not.

Not good enough.

The denial is ridiculous and completely unhelpful. The behaviour has definitely changed.

I use Duolingo daily. Prior to upgrading to iOS 13, the keyboard would automatically switch language to the whatever made sense for the exercise in question. I assume this was driven by hints from Duolingo

Since the upgrade the language (and the keyboard) never auto switches, and the spell check is all over the place.

This 100% changed in iOS 13. Please fix the hinting system so that apps can automatically suggest a better keyboard / language as appropriate. As they could, one way or the other, in iOS 12.

It seems like support doesn’t have an answer. The explanation given was not correct. The previous version of iOS had language switching capabilities which have been lost in the new version.

It’s down to their developers. I hope that support can look at this thread and raise the issue with their developers to correct the problems.

It’s not just on Duolingo that the auto keyboard switching has been lost. It also happens on across all apps and web browsers.

Perhaps those on Duolingo noticed it early because they use multiple keyboards.

Support, please take note and raise this issue!

Agree it’s still broke. 3 languages and auto spell is using a language not selected. Halfway through typing it will toggle to another irrelevant language. This is so annoying, happens on my iPhone 8 and iPad 12”

This is a change at the OS level.

iOS no longer obeys the commands programmers use to automatically select the input language. (The excuse of ‘only favorite two languages’ is wrong and would be silly.

This has not been fixed in 13.3

I too am having these problems as of today.

When I held the a, o, u, letters down I could choose the appropriate alternate in the German language.

Now, nothing shows up.

I only use 2 languages, English and German.

Anyone find any solutions?

I have been having the same issue!!

I use dictation in Japanese to get better at speaking the language I'm learning. Initially it will take it in Japanese but when I get to the end of the sentence, it will convert it to what it heard in English!

This is incredibly frustrating. Apple, I appreciate trying to make switching between languages easy, but I have had to remove my French keyboard because auto-correct would correct my English spelling mistakes to French as well. Please, give us the option to turn off this feature, as now it is harder than ever to stick to one language at a time!