[UPDATED] How to change the language and voiceover in League of Legends in 7 easy steps

How to change the language and voiceover in League of Legends?

As League of Legends reached 100 million monthly active users across the world, it’s no surprise that the game has about two dozen translations. Riot Games, however, offer several translations per server and do not allow you to play in a remote country’s language. Naturally, this won’t stop us.

Changing LoL language Normally

If your language of preference is on the list of languages for your server, the change is easy. Sign out of your account (that is if Remember Me actually works for you) and select the language from the dropdown menu. This works best for European servers, as the developers did a solid job covering EU’s most spoken languages. You may still question the variety, but keep in mind that Riot Games recorded voiceover and committed to updating them for years to come.

How to change League of Legends Language and voiceover in the new Riot Games Launcher — **Changing League of Legends Language** | Source: League of Legends Launcher

This method, however, won’t work for servers that were set up for primarily single-language markets. The CIS server (RU), for example, supports only the Russian language. Players who want to play the game in a different language have to either switch servers or look for an alternative solution.

Forcing Any LoL Language

Luckily, it’s not like League’s client forgets languages that do not fit your server. With a bit of simple file manipulation, we can make the client run in any language regardless of the server. There are two methods of breaking the LoL language boundaries. While the shortcut method is superior, I’m keeping the notepad method for self-troubleshooting purposes. NB: the Korean client is accessible only through the shortcut method.

[PRESEASON 2020 NOTE]: the shortcut method may not function anymore for new installations of League of Legends.

Shortcut Method

Log in to your server
Close the client without signing out
Go to …/League of Legends
Right-click LeagueClient.exe and press Create Shortcut
Right-click the created shortcut and press Properties
Change Target to “C:\Riot Games\League of Legends\LeagueClient.exe” –locale=ja_JP for Japanese (consult the Locales table below)
Start League with the new shortcut

After the first launch, you can once again run League of Legends from Start Menu. As it is, the shortcut method modifies League files to accommodate the language change. Should your client revert to the original language, keep using the shortcut.

Notepad Method

Log in to your server
Close the client without signing out
Go to …/League of Legends/Config
Open LeagueClientSettings.yaml in a text editor
Replace the value in the locale line—the one below globals—with the value that corresponds to your designated language (see table below)
Make sure the value in the region line matches the region code of your server (see table below).
Start the League of Legends client*

*If launcher ignores the language change, you may have to use LeagueClient.exe from the League of Legends directory instead of the desktop shortcut. Personally, I take advantage of Start Menu on Windows 10 to avoid the hassle

Locales

Language	Value
Čeština	cs_CZ
Deutsch	de_DE
English	en_US
English	en_GB
English	en_AU
Español	es_ES
Español	es_MX
Français	fr_FR
Italiano	it_ITf
Magyar	hu_HU
Polski	pl_PL
Português	pt_BR
Română	ro_RO
Türkçe	tr_TR
Ελληνικά	el_GR
Русский	ru_RU
日本語	ja_JP

Regions

Server	Value
Brazil	BR
Europe Nordic & East	EUNE
Europe West	EUW
Japan	JP
Korea	KR
Latin America North	LAN
Latin America South	LAS
North America	NA
Oceania	OCE
Russia	RU
Turkey	TR

A tool to Change LoL Language

Some third-party tools allow you to automate the process of forcing languages. They basically do the thing that I’ve just described but with less input on your part. Such tools are not illegal as long as they merely edit the two config lines but anything else may put your account in jeopardy. Use third-party language tools at your own risk!

The most up-to-date tool is an open-source solution by Collin McKinney. The interface of his LeagueLocaleLauncher has exactly two lines, and it also supports the Chinese language. The tool is currently in the clear, but keep the risk of getting banned in mind!

Change LoL Voiceover but Not Text

Unfortunately, it’s currently impossible to opt for a different voiceover but keep the text in your native tongue. Even a software solution probably won’t work, as pointed out by Collin McKinney. Then again, why not take the chance to pick up some Japanese?

Guides And Tutorials

League of Legends

Riot Games

by Denis Matusovskiy

February 15, 2020

24 comments

NEMO

February 17, 2020 at 10:20 am

[…] Change the language and voiceover in League of Legends? […]

Vee

March 19, 2020 at 9:46 pm

It doesn't work anymore

Giulio

March 30, 2020 at 2:40 am

Tried over 15 times.... does not work.... the editable file even though is marked as read-only the system automatically overwrites it and puts again the server language.... i dont know whats the big deal on not letting players have english language on a latin american server.... absurd....

DArkgas

April 09, 2020 at 2:46 am

it worked for me no joke

Riki

April 16, 2020 at 4:19 am

This setup is outdated, you need to make a shortcut then go to proprities and write in the folder direction --locale:en_US

The Boi

May 15, 2020 at 1:21 am

It overwrites it every time, can I fix this???

Catamin

May 16, 2020 at 3:50 am

Tried both methods and they both failed, they changed my language back to English

Lord Garbarf

June 10, 2020 at 1:33 am

You need two dashes!

maria aido

June 17, 2020 at 10:26 am

hey at the notepad version you need to add an important note! the change you do from one language to another is a .pak file you need to have.... if you don't have it then it will automatically change to the only one downloaded... so first you need to download the eu_US.pak file or the jp_JP.pak file can be found in \\Riot Games\League of Legends\locales thnx worked for me :)

Squeaky

June 20, 2020 at 6:52 pm

The notepad method worked! Great tutorial thanks.

KurumiDK

June 29, 2020 at 6:42 am

it doesnt work anymore because riot made a change to your account the region and language are fixed to your account instead to your client u cant even finde the region settings in the leagueclient anymore

KurumiDK

June 29, 2020 at 6:47 am

wait nvm it actually works with the notepad method but you have to open the game via : C:\Riot Games\League of Legends/LeagueClient.exe

Caos

June 30, 2020 at 5:28 am

I have done the notepad version before, but now is not working, even if i open from C:\Riot Games\League of Legends/LeagueClient.exe, the game still changes back, and reverts the changes made to the note pad. pls help

Camilo Barco

July 02, 2020 at 12:41 am

work for me the note pad

Caos

July 11, 2020 at 1:11 am

Ok, finally figured it out. The note pad version works, as long as you ONLY change the Locales line. DO NOT change the region line. Otherwise it will detect the region on your server, switch it to that region and consecuentially, switch the language again.

Trung Duc from VN

July 15, 2020 at 10:16 pm

Just log in here to say thank you. I've been looking for this for 2 days. The first and second method didn't work. But the third-party works perfectly. Remember to use the latest release. Now I can play in Korea with english.

SinArchbishop

July 16, 2020 at 1:29 am

As of July 2020, the one things that works is changing the locale on "C:\Riot Games\League of Legends" inside a file called system (the one inside this directory)

HerrHerk

July 18, 2020 at 5:41 pm

The 3rd party solution worked for me WidePeepoHappy

Kashorako

July 23, 2020 at 12:54 am

Use the notepad method, change the two lines with the language you want, (in my case japanese ja_JP) AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, the first time run the game from the folder. not from the shortcut (i mean /Riot Games/League of Legends/LeagueClient.exe), thank me later

jkfvghdsak

July 27, 2020 at 11:00 am

i cant change shortcut properties locale cuz it says error

jkfvghdsak

July 27, 2020 at 11:05 am

after it changed language it says i dont have access and it forces me to log out i cant log in

dino

July 28, 2020 at 12:11 pm

For Italiano use the value it_IT not it_ITf

August 12, 2020 at 9:13 pm

It does work. You need to log in, and check the "log in automatically" box. Then exit without logging out. Go to the file, change BOTH of the lines. Save to file, and it should work when you load "LeagueClient.exe"

Charlie

August 23, 2020 at 10:48 pm

Just to confirm that I tried today this, and still worked. I went with the sortcut way.