How to set default keyboard language to be different than default Windows language

Hi once again.

Well, I seem to have found how to do it in Windows 11, to get it to work as I had in Windows 10. It is really not so obvious. So I think I now have things as they were.

For the benefit of anyone else in the same situation, what I just did now is to go the the Language settings, where I have both English and Danish installed, with English on top to be the preferred language (so that I have my Windows menus and all apps in English). From the English selection, I found out just now that I could go into the keyboard setup specific for the English language selection, and here I could select additional keyboard layouts to be associated with the English language selection. This is what I had in Windows 10 but could not until now find the way to set it up in Windows 11..

So now I have both English and Danish keyboard associated with the English language, and I have only the Danish keyboard associated with the Danish language. Maybe I don't even need the latter anymore. And I think this will now let me keep the language as English but the keyboard as Danish.

Thanks again for the help, and prodding me to keep looking for the solution!

Hello,

thank you for the reply. I am skeptical about this being a solution for me. It is what I tried before. I had placed Danish as the first language in the list, followed by English. What happened then, is that I found I had the Danish language all over my PC. According to the text which also can be seen in the image, it states "Preferred language" Microsoft store apps will appear in the first language in this list". And this is what I do not want to have. I do not want to read Danish when I use apps on my computer. It is not my mother tongue, and most of us anyway are quite aware of what software and IT terms are called in English. And seeing something translated to Danish or having to search for it with a Danish instead of English word is very inconvenient. What I do want is the preferred keyboard layout language, the one that appears by default if not otherwise modified by me, to be the one that I select to be this default keyboard language (in my case, Danish), while everything else having to do with the operating system and installed apps use the English language. This was totally possible with Windows 10, but it seems that the keyboard and apps language have been coupled together in Windows 11.

Why is this a usability issue? I have been living and working in Denmark over 30 years, and since all work places are set up using the Danish keyboard, I have become accustomed to this keyboard, for example where the special symbols and punctuation keys are located. Also, we do have a need for the special Danish letters not found on an English layout. On the other hand, English is my working language, and I am really quite lost when I need to find a Windows menu or component or an installed app menu or component if it has become translated to Danish. Therefore, there should be a decoupling of the default keyboard layout from the preferred Windows and apps language.

I thank you very much for trying to help out here. I am rather busy with many things, and might or might not find the time to reproduce the various scenarios not working for me, and provide you with the screen shots. If my explanations so far do not make clear what I am not being able to do with Windows 11, then either I am misunderstanding a setting somewhere, or we will need to wait until I find the time to provide screen shots. When I mentioned in the last post that it is no big thing to me, what I mean is that there is a work around for me; I just need to remember to manually set the language on my keyboard when I start my PC up each time. And I do not know how to explain what I am struggling with any clearer than I already have done so far in the previous posts.

Basically, once again, it is this:

1. I want English as the Windows 11 language for all texts that appear on the screen, both for Windows behaviors and all installed apps. I do not want Danish or any other language here.
2. And I want my keyboard to be in Danish per default, with the toggle ability to switch to English as needed.

This was no problem to set up in Windows 10, but I haven't found a way to set up both of the above in Windows 11.

But thanks again for all the help.

Thanks for the further observations you shared.

We found that we overlooked the most important point, which is the point you recently mentioned, which is the keyboard layout for the language.

In addition, based on the idea you provided, the order of keyboard layouts can actually be adjusted by manually deleting the original first-ranked keyboard layout after adding additional keyboard layouts, as shown below.

Perhaps this is exactly how the product team envisioned it when designing.

Wow, I am really happy that my experience has helped another (and maybe others). But I would not say it is a work around. It seems, when you think about it, how the system works, setting up one or more keyboard layouts for each "installed" language. It is just very difficult to find this, and I was lucky enough to do so. :)