iPhone communicates in Spanish when only English is selected

Question

iPhone communicates in Spanish when only English is selected

This is a bizarre one.

For some reason, my iPhone communicates with me in Spanish when I only speak English. It's not that Siri suddenly speaks Spanish or anything; I'm talking about things like system pop-ups and other system-generated messages that involve text on my screen -- the text is always in Spanish. I've included some examples below.

Now I am trying to set up Apple Intelligence and Chat GPT and I'm getting nowhere because those screens are now in French and Portuguese (I think)! See below.

Although I'm currently on a 16 Pro (running iOS 18.2.1), the problem began on my 14 Pro or maybe earlier. I've checked all the usual places in the phone's settings -- English is the only language selected. And for the record, I do not have this problem on either my iMac or iPad.

I contacted Apple about this years ago but when I showed the screenshot of the Google message, the rep suggested it was a Google problem and I got nowhere, so I gave up. But as the screenshots now show, this is not a Google problem, it's most definitely an iPhone problem.

Please help me figure out a solution to this extremely annoying problem!

[Re-Titled By Moderator]

iPhone 16 Pro

Posted on Jan 22, 2025 08:32 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 24, 2025 05:48 AM in response to brbo

Thanks for your response.

what do you think is causing the issue ?

I really have no idea. One culprit that I suspected early on was the fact that at various times over the years I had been trying to learn Spanish and French, so at one time I added Spanish and French dictionaries to autocorrect because the phone would try to change all my foreign words and it got super annoying. However I removed them when this problem first presented itself.

"I see the word Google appears in each of the first three of the top screen-shots"

"The remaining top screen-shot appears to be something to do with a "linked" Amazon account (a Google log-in?)"

That's only because they happen to be screenshots of login screens, and nowadays they all offer login via Google, Apple and Facebook. The first two shots are Google-related. The third is Adobe for which my google email address is my login. The fourth is from when I opened a Ring account and linked it to Alexa. The bottom two are both from when I was attempting to link my ChatGPT account to Apple Intelligence.

"Else: Wondering which browser you are using ..

You may be using third-party (non-Apple) apps / browser ? I could be wrong."

Sorry, forgot to mention that my default browser is Chrome for iPhone.

Also for what it's worth, I once tried to replicate the problem on my iPad. Since it's linked to my Apple account, just as my iPhone is, I expected it to present the same problem. But surprise! The iPad only talks to me in English. See below.

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Answer 2

brbo

Level 8

38,107 points

Jan 23, 2025 11:55 PM in response to raysterlingNYC

Re: "iPhone communicates in Spanish when only English is selected

Please help me figure out a solution to this extremely annoying problem!"

Am no expert in this area, yet your post to the community deserves some response.

We may need to find the cause of the situation to uncover a solution ... what do you think is causing the issue ?

I see the word Google appears in each of the first three of the top screen-shots, and in one of the bottom two.

The remaining top screen-shot appears to be something to do with a "linked" Amazon account (a Google log-in?)

The remaining bottom screen-shot appears to be a log-in to the same website as the one beside it. (Google log-in

Settings in an account using a google log-in or google settings may be at the bottom of this problem-situation?

Else: Seems, with three of the screen-shots requesting log-ins, the issue may be web (or app?) related.

Could the accounts you are attempting to log-in to be something to do with the Spanish etc. appearing

Else: Wondering which browser you are using ..

You may be using third-party (non-Apple) apps / browser ? I could be wrong.

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iPhone communicates in Spanish when only English is selected

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