How-to

How to type in two languages on iPhone without switching keyboards

Published 3 October 2026 · 4 min read

If you write in two languages, the globe key turns every message into a small chore: tap, check, type, tap again. Here is how to make your iPhone follow you between languages instead, starting with what is already built in.

Step 1: try Apple’s bilingual keyboard

For select language pairs, iOS can type in two languages on one keyboard. Apple says the keyboard “automatically switches between the two languages you use most often”, so suggestions and corrections follow what you are writing.

1. Open Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards.
2. Tap Add New Keyboard and choose your second language.
3. If the option appears, tap Add to [your first language] Keyboard. That is the bilingual keyboard.
4. Tap Done, open any app, and type a sentence in each language.

If you do not see the Add to… option, your pair is not one Apple supports for multilingual typing. Apple’s Feature Availability page lists the languages that are. Since iOS 18 there is also a three-language keyboard for one specific group of languages, described on Apple’s support site.

Tidy up while you are there

Every keyboard in that list is one more stop on the globe key. In the same screen, swipe left on keyboards you never use and tap Delete, and tap Edit to reorder the rest. Fewer keyboards means fewer wrong turns. If your keyboard seems to change language by itself, this guide explains why and what to change.

Step 2: if Apple does not support your pair

Then the choice is between switching keyboards by hand and installing a keyboard that detects language as you type. Every third-party keyboard is installed the same way:

1. Install it from the App Store and open its app once.
2. Go to Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards › Add New Keyboard… and choose it.
3. In any app, touch and hold the globe key and pick it.
4. Turn on your languages in the keyboard’s own app, not in iOS Settings.

Then what you get depends on the keyboard.

Gboard

In the Gboard app, tap Languages › Add language. Google says Gboard can support up to three languages at a time on iPhone, and that you can type in them without changing language, though not every language supports this. Google Search in the keyboard needs Full Access.

Microsoft SwiftKey

In the SwiftKey app, tap Languages and enable up to two. Microsoft says that if both use the same layout, SwiftKey detects which one you are writing; if the layouts differ, you slide on the space bar to switch layout. On iOS, SwiftKey requires Full Access.

Pilcrow

In the Pilcrow app, open Languages and switch on each language you write. Ones that are not built in download on the spot. You can enable several, and the keyboard tells them apart word by word: a message that starts in one language and ends in another needs no key press in between. Swipe works in all of them.

The layout follows the first language in your list; drag to reorder. Any language can be typed on the layout you already know, so you do not have to relearn where letters are to write in your second language. Letters your languages need but the layout does not show are a long-press away, and if you skip accents, Pilcrow puts them back 74–85 % of the time, quoted at the worst end across the languages it ships.

None of this needs Full Access. The Pilcrow keyboard contains no networking code, so your typing stays on the phone either way.

Step 3: make suggestions follow you

However you set it up, a few habits help any multilingual keyboard guess right:

• Give it a word or two. Short words are often valid in more than one language. A keyboard that detects language has more to go on after the second or third word of a sentence than after the first.
• Turn off languages you do not write. Each extra language is one more set of words that can be suggested by mistake.
• Correct it once, clearly. On Apple’s keyboard, rejecting a suggestion is how a word gets added to its dictionary. In Pilcrow, undoing a correction once means it is never applied to that word again.
• Check per-language settings. Pilcrow lets you turn autocorrect off for one language and keep it on for another, which helps when one of your languages is mostly names and borrowed words.

What no keyboard can change

One iOS rule applies to every third-party keyboard: in password fields and phone-number pads, iOS always shows Apple’s keyboard, and returns to yours when you leave the field. If your keyboard “disappears” on a login screen, that is why, and it is not a fault in the keyboard you picked.

Which route is right for you?

If Apple supports your pair, use it: it is free and already there. If not, the deciding questions are how many languages you write, whether you change language within a sentence, and how you feel about Full Access. The roundup of keyboards for typing in two languages compares the options side by side.

Sources

1. Apple, Add or change keyboards on iPhone
2. Apple, iOS and iPadOS Feature Availability
3. Apple, Use three languages in one keyboard on your iPhone with iOS 18
4. Apple, Reset iPhone settings to their defaults (how words are added to the keyboard dictionary)
5. Google, Set up Gboard – iPhone & iPad
6. Microsoft, How to use Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard with more than one language
7. Apple Developer, Custom Keyboard (secure fields and phone pads)