Cortana's regions and languages

To use Cortana, your region and language settings have to be aligned. Check the following list of regions where Cortana is available, and the corresponding language for each of those regions.

• Cortana is available in these regions for these languages:

  • Australia: English

  • Canada: English

  • China: Chinese (Simplified)

  • France: French

  • Germany: German

  • India: English

  • Italy: Italian

  • Japan: Japanese

  • Spain: Spanish

  • United Kingdom: English

  • United States: English

• Note: If you change your region, you might not be able to shop at the Store, or use things you've purchased, like memberships and subscriptions, games, movies, TV, and music.

• Update: If your settings are correct but you still can't use Cortana, installing the latest Windows Updates might fix the problem. 

• To use Cortana, all these settings have to be set to the same language:

  • Languages (this is your device language)

  • Speech language

  • Country or region

• To confirm that your settings are correct or to make a change: 

  1. Open  Settings.  Select  Time & language, and then  Region & language.

  2. Check the Language (set as default) setting for your Windows display language. To get a new language, select Add a Language, then choose one from the list. It may take a few minutes for the language pack to load. If you remove a language you can always add it back later.

  3. Check the Country or region setting. Make sure the country selected corresponds with the Windows Display language set in the Language setting.

  4. Go back to Settings > Time & language > Speech  and make sure the Speech language setting is aligned with the previous settings. If the language you want isn't available, follow the steps on the next tab to add it.

  5. Sign out and then sign back in for the new settings to take effect.

• Note: For mobile devices, make sure you have the correct settings for Language, Region, and Speech under Settings > Time & language.

  • Go to Language > Add language to add a new language.

  • Go to Speech > Add a language to add a new speech language.

For some languages you might need to manually download a speech pack.

1.  Go to Start and open Settings.

2. Select Time & language > Region & language.

3. Select the language you want to add speech to, and then select the Options button.

4. Under Speech, select Download. It may take a minute or two for the speech pack to load.

5. Sign out and then sign back in for the new speech pack to be added to speech options.

6. Go back to Time & language, select your new language, then Set as Default.

7. On  Settings > Time & language > Speech, make sure the Speech language setting is aligned with the previous settings. 

8. Sign out and then sign back in for the new settings to take effect.