Apple Music: English-Spanish lyrics wrong in Costa Rica

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Level 1

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Apple Music: English-Spanish lyrics wrong in Costa Rica

Hi everyone,

I’m in Costa Rica and my Apple Music account/device language is Spanish. Since Apple Music added lyric translations, I’ve been excited to try English-to-Spanish lyric translation, but it has never worked correctly for me.

This happens across all my devices:

- iPhone 13

- Mac Studio M4 Max

- iPad Pro 12.9-inch Wi-Fi + Cellular

The translation option appears in Apple Music, but I never get English-to-Spanish translations. In some songs, Apple Music shows Japanese or another non-Spanish language instead. In others, the translation option appears but Spanish is not available.

Examples:

- “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra: translation appears in Japanese.

- “APESHIT” by THE CARTERS: translation appears in Chinese.

I know other Apple Music users in Costa Rica with similar issues, so I’m wondering if this is related to Apple Music region, Apple ID country, language settings, or server-side lyric localization.

Has anyone in Costa Rica or Latin America been able to get English-to-Spanish lyric translations working in Apple Music? Is there any setting that fixes this, or is this a known Apple Music localization issue?

Thanks. and Pura vida 🌴

Mac Studio (M4 Max, 2025)

Posted on Jun 28, 2026 2:09 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

WheelieNick

Level 9

59,924 points

Sep 5, 2026 1:08 PM in response to imczc

This is a known behavior related to how Apple Music rolls out lyric translations and how it interacts with your device's language settings.

The issue comes down to a mix of two things: limited song-by-song language pairings and your device's Preferred Languages fallback order. When Apple Music first introduced Lyric Translations, it launched with a very limited set of language pairs, heavily prioritizing English-to-Japanese and English-to-Chinese. While English-to-Spanish translations have begun rolling out more widely, the feature is track-dependent. If a song like "Mr. Blue Sky" only has an official Japanese translation in Apple's database, the app will display that option as a fallback instead of Spanish.

Try this

Open the Settings app.

Go to General > Language & Region.

Look at the Preferred Languages list.

If you see Japanese, Chinese, or other languages you don't speak, swipe left to delete them.

Tap Add Language... and ensure both Spanish (Español) and English (US or UK) are added.

Keep Spanish at the very top as your primary language, with English directly below it.

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