Spell check only works in English despite multiple languages installed and multilingual text suggestions enabled

Question

Spell check only works in English despite multiple languages installed and multilingual text suggestions enabled

Wise 5

I have multiple languages installed (English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese) and multilingual text suggestions is turned on, but spell check only works in English in all apps including Word, Outlook, Notion and WhatsApp desktop. How do I get spell check to work in multiple languages simultaneously? Is this not available? Or what's going on? I can't seem to find anything on this.

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3 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Unfortunately some random AI at Microsoft thought this was a Good Idea and no one thought to object.

Why in the name of Jupiter would I want to autocorrect in Swedish all the time just because I have a Swedish keyboard‽

Just turn off autocorrect or deal with having to switch the keyboard language to something that doesn't match the actual key layout just to get the correct correction language.

Unfortunately no one working on Microsoft will ever see this and if we are lucky some random AI that has no actual idea about what we are talking about or how Windows works will say something random to eat up some compute on a server somewhere.

It is too late, look at penguins or something else.

Answer 2

Francisco Montilla 31,825 Independent Advisor

Hello,

What you are running into is unfortunately by design for native Windows tools.

The setting you turned on for Multilingual text suggestions is strictly meant for the predictive autocomplete words floating above your text cursor, Windows only supports mixing up to three Latin languages at once. It completely ignores the red squiggly spell checking lines underneath your words. The spell check in those apps is glued strictly to whatever keyboard input layout is currently active in your system tray down by the clock.

If you want the red lines to stop bugging out in WhatsApp, try hitting the Windows key and the Spacebar together to physically toggle your input layout to Dutch, French, or Spanish right before you type. Let me know if that fixes the squiggles. If it does, your system is working normally, you just have to use that shortcut every time you switch languages.

Word and Outlook are a totally different beast since they rely on a built in Office language detector instead of the raw Windows settings. We can tackle those ones next if that Windows Spacebar trick solves your WhatsApp issue.

Does swapping the input layout get it to work?

Bojan Skoric 0 Reputation points

2026-11-10T09:26:42.1333333+00:00

Altough this sounds logical, it doesn't work like that. At least it does not in my case: Serbian in latin script. So, Windows languages are configured like this: Interface and default language for apps is English (US), regional settings is in Serbian, latin format and language list have added Serbian (Latin) and Serbian (Cyrillic) packs, both of them support spell checking and typing.

However, when I switch to and type in Serbian (latin or cyrillic), system spell checking just don't work and mark every single word. If you type some english words, they are considered correct. Meaning, although you switched to proper input, it simply dosen't work.

Answer 3

Windows and Microsoft 365 apps can check spelling in multiple languages, but only when each of these conditions is met for the specific app/text:

The language is enabled as an editing/proofing language in Office
For Word/Outlook and other Office apps, each language must be enabled before its dictionary can be used.
- Open an Office app (for example, Word).
- Go to Set the Office Language Preferences and make sure Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese are added as editing/authoring languages.
- If a language is not available, a language pack may be required. See Add a language or set language preferences in Office and Language Accessory Pack for Office.
The correct language is applied to the text
Spell check is language‑specific per text range. If text is tagged as English, only the English dictionary is used on that text.
- In Word: select the text, then Review → Language → Set Proofing Language and choose the correct language for that section.
- Repeat for each language section (Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese).
  If the text is mis‑tagged, correctly spelled words in other languages may be flagged, or misspellings may not be detected.
The correct language dictionary is selected
In Word, ensure the dictionary for each language is present and selected:
- Review → Language → Set Proofing Language → choose the appropriate language (for example, English (United States) vs English (United Kingdom)).
- If a language is not listed above the double line, it must be enabled first.
Automatic language detection and keyboard switching are configured appropriately
Automatic detection can misidentify language when words are shared between languages.
- If words like “centre” appear, Detect language automatically may tag the text incorrectly. In Word, use Review → Language → Set Proofing Language and either:
  - Type more text in the intended language so detection stabilizes, or
  - Clear Detect language automatically and explicitly set the language for each section.
- If Automatically switch keyboard to match language of surrounding text is enabled (Word → File → Options → Advanced → Editing options), the keyboard layout may change and affect typing/spell check behavior. Disable it if it causes confusion.
Spelling is not disabled for the text
If Do not check spelling or grammar is set on the text, no spell checking occurs even if languages are installed.
- In Word: Review → Language → Set Proofing Language → clear Do not check spelling or grammar.
Per‑app limitations
- Office apps (Word, Outlook) support multi‑language proofing when languages are enabled and text is correctly tagged.
- Other apps (Notion, WhatsApp desktop) rely on their own or OS‑level spell checkers and may not support simultaneous multi‑language spell check in the same way. Their behavior is not controlled solely by Windows’ multilingual text suggestions.

In practice, to get multi‑language spell check working simultaneously in Word/Outlook:

Enable all needed languages as editing/proofing languages in Office.
Apply the correct proofing language to each section of text.
Adjust or disable automatic language detection if it mis‑tags text.
Ensure Do not check spelling or grammar is not set.

If a specific language still does not spell‑check after these steps, verify that its proofing tools are installed via the Office language pack for that language.

References: