Set Custom Keyboard Shortcut to Change Language on Windows 10
Windows 10 supports multiple input languages. You can add as many languages as you like, and cycle through them with the Alt+Left Shift keyboard shortcut. This shortcut may not be the best. It’s easy to execute it by accident, or it could very well be part of other keyboard shortcut combinations, creating a conflict. Here’s how you can set a custom keyboard shortcut to change the language on Windows 10.
These instructions are for Windows 10 1803. Microsoft seems to like changing the keyboard shortcut for this particular feature and they’ve been doing it for the past two major feature updates. So, here’s how it works on Windows 10, 1803.
Keyboard shortcut to change the language
Open the Settings app and go to the Devices group of settings. Select the Typing tab. Under the More keyboard settings section, click the ‘Advanced keyboard settings’ option.
On the Advanced keyboard settings screen, click ‘Language bar options’. This is going to open the language bar settings and they could not have hidden it any better. Go to the Advanced Key Settings tab and select the ‘Between input languages’ option under Actions. Click the ‘Change Key Sequence’ button.
In the window that opens, you can select from one of the preset options and click Ok.
You can also set a keyboard shortcut to switch to a specific language. Select one of the languages you’ve added to your Windows 10 system, and then click the Change Key Sequence button. You have more flexibility with these shortcuts but you have to use the Ctrl modifier key and you can only use numbers from 1-0, or the Tilde key with it.
The language keyboard shortcuts have to work no matter what screen you’re on. They’re universal which is why Windows 10 has somewhat limited customization options here. If you’re worried about changing the input language when you do not mean to, you can go with the Tilde key. It normally sits above the Tab key which isn’t used that often and has less chance of being pressed by accident.
This particular setting used to be accessible from the Control Panel. It was in a more obvious panel there. Microsoft doesn’t list the settings it moves out from the Control Panel to the Settings app which is why these changes can go unnoticed until you need to access them. The window that opens is still the same one that you got when you used the Control Panel to access the setting. That window has not been updated and it likely won’t be for a while.
