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Samsung Galaxy S5 Language Options


Glenn

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大家好。好久不見了。

I looked around a little, but didn't see anything related to this on the forums already, and since this is such a new device, I figured that meant it hadn't been brought up yet. Google hasn't been much help either, and considering the specialized nature of this forum's members' knowledge, this seemed like as good a place to ask as any.

Does anyone have the new Galaxy S5, and if so, what languages are available on it? I only have 5 options for the OS -- English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. I'd like to also have Japanese and Traditional Chinese as options (and if I get really crazy, Greek). The only solution I've found involved a lot of stuff I feel should be unnecessary.

On the keyboard/input side, I'm just missing Traditional Chinese, although the handwriting input option does allow me to at least be able to input it.

The crazy thing about this is that there's a video on YouTube of a guy talking about how to change the language, and his phone has scores of available OS languages. Why they aren't uniform on the same device is another question, but that's not the one I'm really interested in right now. At any rate, any ideas?

Thanks.

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I don't have a galaxy S5. Mine is a galaxy note 2. Anyways, if you only need to input traditional Chinese, I suggest you download google pinyin IME from the play store and set the output to traditional Chinese. I have it installed in my phone this way, and it is so much better than samsung's IME pre-installed in the phone.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.pinyin

The default language of my phone is English. I don't remember why it is, but it is convenient.

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Yeah, rooting. I have to look up what that even is. I was hoping there was something on the phone itself already, but I guess that's not the case at all. I still don't get why all phones don't have all available languages loaded on them. I'm pretty sure any iPhone would have pretty much all the languages available on Wikipedia already loaded onto it. Anyway...

@skylee

Thanks for the suggestion. I wasn't even aware that was an option.

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In order to add the support you're probably going to have to root it. Unfortunately, Samsung doesn't seem to provide support for more than a few languages. There's some apps in the store, but I haven't found any that work on my S4, and I'd assume that the S5 is probably in similar territory.

 

As much as I like m S4 it's really annoying that they chose to limit the languages that much.

 

And to answer your question about availability, it's because Samsung chose not to include the locale. There's a file that you can change to add the support, but it's locked and so you can only change it by rooting the device or possibly with the devkit. I'm not sure if the latter option is going to require voiding the warranty.

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Yeah, that's the scary thing. I looked did a little research on rooting, and it seems that (at least at that time) there aren't even techniques (?) available for all versions of the S5. I looked at one, it gave the particular version it was for, and said trying that on any other version brought with it the possibility of it catching on fire. That may have been an exaggeration, but I'm not willing to risk damaging the phone. Also, it seems that the warranty will be void if I go that route. This is extremely frustrating.

 

Also, I got Google Pinyin and the Google Japanese IME, but it doesn't seem I can switch between them without going back into the settings every time. They're fine if I just want to use one or the other along with English, but if I'm going to be going back and forth between all three it's quite a hassle. Is there a way to set them up so that I have access to all three?

 

Incidentally, I tried out the Swype option too. I'm not a fan so far...

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Alternatively, you can go to settings > keyboard and check both "show language switch key" (a globe key will appear next to the space bar) and "switch to other input methods" (which will work when the globe key is pressed). Personally I don't use the second option.

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Ha! I think I have the Google thing figured out now at least. Although, for some strange reason, I got taken to the Samsung keyboard, and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to get back. I was able to toggle back and forth between the Google input methods before that at least, though.

Thanks for your help so far, guys. This has been helpful.

PS: This is my first smartphone (although I do own an old iPod Touch and have used other people's iPhones).

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  • 1 month later...
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okay so i just created an account to thank skylee. lol. :clap

(couldn't control my emotions because i was struggling on my s5 by myself for about 30mins before i decided to try my luck googling and easily came to this topic! :wall )

 

i just got an s5 and i was cracking my brains (or should i say my hands) trying to figure out how i could toggle between the samsung keyboard and google pinyin input.

i was using an s2 before this and my most frequently used keyboards would be English & Korean from the Samsung keyboard and Traditional Chinese (sometimes SImplified) from the Google Pinyin.

 

when i toggled among them in s2, i just needed to hold onto the input text box and there would be this 'Edit text' menu with an option that says 'Input method'. from there i could choose between Google Pinyin Input and Samsung keypad. and it never disappeared after i changed back to the Samsung keypad!

 

for s5, i can start off with google pinyin and hold onto the globe button to switch it back to Samsung keyboard but after getting to the Samsung keyboard, there is no more globe button!

 

 

 

When in input mode, see if there is a small keyboard icon at the top bar. If there is, pull down (swipe) the top bar and then you can change the input method.

this one works well for me. i didn't notice that there was a keyboard icon at the top left. i felt so dumb after trying it and realizing that it was way simpler than what i have been doing through the struggle.

 

 

 

Alternatively, you can go to settings > keyboard and check both "show language switch key" (a globe key will appear next to the space bar) and "switch to other input methods" (which will work when the globe key is pressed). Personally I don't use the second option.

but i couldn't find a way to execute this method. i couldn't find a settings > keyboard function :cry:

 

 

:clap :clap :clap THANK YOU SKYLEE!!!!!! :D :D :D

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  • 3 weeks later...

Glenn, I have the International version of the Galaxy S5, which I bought stock in Taiwan.  It seems to have a great many languages:

Chinese (HK Traditional, TW Traditional, Simplified), Korean, Arabic, Armenian, Azeri, Catalan, Check, Danish, German, English, Estonian, French, Finnish, Irish Gaelic, Icelandic, Latvian, Dutch, Norwegian (Bokmal), Ozbek, Polish, Slovenian, Serbian, Turkish, Greek, Kazakh, Bulgarian, Ukranian are just the ones I can identify with a quick glance.

 

It seems that the Galaxy devices, unless you buy them straight from the manufacturer, are regionalized, meaning that, for instance, a European version may include many European languages, but lack say, Chinese and Japanese, and an Indian version would have Hindi and Urdu, but not necessarily German or French, since there are few native German or French speakers.

 

As for input, I use a program called Swype (available of you search the app store), for which you can download Traditional Chinese as well as Japanese.  The package contains both Zhuyin Fuhao as well as Pinyin and Handwriting recognition.  It also has the advantage of being able to "swipe" (hence the name) without lifting your finger, so once you get used to it, it's much more efficient.

 

I'm not sure if root is out for the factory International version yet, but certain versions like AT&T in the US have been rooted.

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  • 2 years later...

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