\u201cChange the language in Shopify\u201d means three different things depending on who is doing the changing and what they are looking at. The admin dashboard you log into has one language setting. The storefront your customers see has another. The Shopify POS app you ring up sales on has a third. The three are configured in different places, and conflating them is why most how-to guides for this task leave the merchant more confused than they started.<\/p>\n
This guide walks each path separately. If you only want to change what you see when you log in, skip to the admin section. If you want your storefront to launch in a different default language, or to offer additional languages your customers can switch between, those are the two storefront paths. If you run Shopify POS in a non-English store, there is a per-device setting too.<\/p>\n
Before you change anything, know which one you mean:<\/p>\n
This affects only your own view of the Shopify admin. Nobody else on the store sees it change, and shoppers never see it.<\/p>\n
The admin UI reloads in the new language. You can repeat this on each device or browser you use the admin from; Shopify remembers it per account.<\/p>\n
This changes the base language your theme and content are served in. It is a store-wide change and should be approached with care on an existing live store: Shopify warns you that changing the default language rewrites the primary theme strings, and anything you have manually translated previously may need to be redone.<\/p>\n
If your store is already live and selling, our strong recommendation is to add<\/em> the new language rather than replace the default (see the next section). Overwriting the default on a mature store is painful to undo.<\/p>\n This is the right path for most merchants expanding into new markets. You keep your current default and offer the shopper a language switcher.<\/p>\n Once the language is added, you have three choices for actually translating the content:<\/p>\n Most Shopify themes include a language switcher that appears automatically once a second published language exists. If yours does not, your translation app will inject one.<\/p>\n The Shopify POS app on an iPad or iPhone has its own language setting, separate from your admin and your storefront. It is set per device.<\/p>\n If a language you want is not listed, check that your iPad or iPhone\u2019s system language supports it in the device\u2019s own Settings app; POS pulls from the OS\u2019s available languages.<\/p>\n If you sell into multiple regions through Shopify Markets, language becomes a per-market setting rather than a single store-wide one. In Settings > Markets<\/strong>, open a market, go to the Languages<\/strong> section, and add the languages that should serve shoppers routed to that market. A French-Canadian shopper routed to your Canada market can see French content and CAD prices; a shopper routed to your France market can see French with EUR prices.<\/p>\n This matters for SEO too: Shopify Markets writes proper region codes into your URLs (fr-ca vs fr-fr) and hreflang tags, so Google can serve the right page to the right region.<\/p>\n Some strings are still in the old language.<\/strong> Shopify\u2019s native translation covers product fields and most theme strings, but it does not touch text baked into images, text inside third-party apps (reviews, upsell widgets, filters), or hard-coded strings a theme developer wrote into Liquid. Edit those directly in the theme, or use a translation app that covers them.<\/p>\n The language switcher is not showing.<\/strong> It only appears once you have added a second published<\/em> language. If the second language is still in draft, publish it from Settings > Languages<\/strong>. If the theme has no built-in switcher, your translation app usually ships one.<\/p>\n Prices still show in the old currency.<\/strong> Language and currency are separate settings. Add the currency in Settings > Markets > [market] > Currencies<\/strong>, or use a currency app alongside your translation app.<\/p>\n Google is not indexing the new language pages.<\/strong> Check that each translated page has its own URL (a \/fr\/ path, not a JavaScript overlay), that your hreflang tags are correct, and that the translated pages appear in your sitemap. Most translation apps handle all three automatically if configured; a widget-style tool does not.<\/p>\n If your plan is to run the store in several languages long-term, the broader setup (URL structure, hreflang, switcher placement, Shopify Markets) is a bigger topic. Our multilingual Shopify setup guide<\/a> covers it end to end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cChange the language in Shopify\u201d means three different things depending on who is doing the changing and what they are looking at. The admin dashboard you log into has one\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_metatitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-faq"],"acf":{"breadcrumbs":[{"postpage":[46912]}],"conclusion":"Add Additional Languages for Customers<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
hreflang<\/code> SEO tags. Our picks for the current field are in our Shopify translation apps roundup<\/a>.<\/li>\nChange the Language in the Shopify POS App<\/h2>\n
\n
Shopify Markets and Multi-Region Language<\/h2>\n
Common Issues After Changing the Language<\/h2>\n
Which Language Change Did You Actually Need?<\/h2>\nIf you only wanted the admin to look different for you, that is done in two clicks under your profile menu. If you wanted the storefront's default to change, that is Settings and should be approached carefully on a live store. If you wanted shoppers to be able to switch languages, that is Add Language plus a translation workflow.\n\nFor the storefront translation workflow itself, our picks are in the Shopify translation apps roundup<\/a>, and the broader setup (URL structure, hreflang, switcher UX, Shopify Markets) lives in the multilingual Shopify setup guide<\/a>.","repeater":null,"filter":false,"attach_to_post":[6420],"author_bio":false,"custom_author_bio":false,"author_bio_name":"","author_bio_info":"","_meta_excerpt_title":"","meta_excerpt":"","trust_signals":{"expert_reviewed":true,"items_tested":""},"key_statistics":null,"key_takeaways":{"takeaways_items":null},"required_subtopics":null,"context_block":{"context_heading":"","context_excerpt":"","context_content":""},"methodology":{"methodology_heading":"","methodology_content":""},"comparison_table":"","mid_content_cta":{"cta_text":"","cta_button_text":"","cta_link":""}},"yoast_head":"\n