The Input Language for Android Phones

Android phones have built-in spell checking that can automatically correct or make recommendations on misspellings as you type. Android's default keyboard can also make recommendations on words that you have not even completed yet. In order for spell checking and auto-complete to work properly, set your Android phone to expect the correct input language.

The input language does not change your phone's keyboard to provide you with different characters or a different arrangement. It only changes the dictionary of words that the spell checking and auto-complete algorithms use. You can also set the input language for your Android phone's voice recognition feature. Like the keyboard language setting, the voice recognizer language setting defines what words the recognizer looks for.

Your phone's input language settings are located in the "Language and Keyboard" section of the "Settings" menu. Tap the name of the onscreen keyboard that you use in the language and keyboard menu to access that keyboard's settings. Tap "Input Languages," then tap any of the languages in the list that you want to use for language input. A check appears in the check box next to each selected language. Select "Voice Input & Output Setup" from your phone's main Settings menu, then select "Voice Recognizer" to change your phone's recognition language. Tap "Language" and select the language you use when speaking into your phone.

If your phone is running Android 2.3 or if you have installed the Gingerbread keyboard, you can quickly and easily swap input languages on your phone's onscreen keyboard. Drag your finger to the left or right on the onscreen keyboard's spacebar to scroll through the list of languages that you checked in the keyboard's Input Languages menu. You can also access the keyboard's Settings menu to select new languages by tapping and holding the microphone icon on the keyboard until the Settings icon appears above it. Tap the Settings icon to open the keyboard settings screen.

Android's default keyboard supports a variety of accented and alternate characters, but it can take significantly longer to type with them. To type in a language that uses characters that are not readily available on the Android keyboard, download and install a different keyboard for your phone from the Android Market. Some keyboards, such as MultiLing, immediately support multiple character layouts. Others, such as GO Keyboard and Smart KeyBoard PRO, support multiple character layouts once you have downloaded the correct character layout from the Android Market.

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