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3

I live in Italy and have an italian billing address; because of this Apple assumes that I want the app store in italian which is not the case.

The whole UI is in italian, the app descriptions and their reviews are in italian, even the "Top apps" are the top apps in Italy instead of in the United States. I can't even begin to explain how much this annoys me.

Is there any way to change the language to English? What if someone who lives in Italy doesn't speak italian, which is not that uncommon?

The only way I found was to ask an american friend his credit card number and use that - along with a fake name and billing address - to make purchases, but unfortunately now we don't speak much anymore and I was forced to switch back to my credit card again. As soon as I did that it said that my cc must be associated with an italian billing address, and as soon as I put my real address it changed the language back to italian.

I'm really desperate!

EDIT: this is happening on my iPhone; screenshot: http://i.stack.imgur.com/wsndr.png

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is iTunes in Italian? The menu and user interface outside of the App Store? – mankoff Nov 11 '10 at 16:35
@mankoff: partly.. The buttons are, but things like "Loading" is still in english. Same for the app store. – Andreas Bonini Nov 11 '10 at 17:08
What language is the menu bar in? – mankoff Nov 11 '10 at 18:41
@mankoff: almost all in italian, except the "more" button which is in english. – Andreas Bonini Nov 11 '10 at 18:57
Answer still not clear. What "more" button? I am referring to the menu at the very top of the screen, not the top menu in iTunes. Anyway, if the very top menu is Italian, try this: apple.stackexchange.com/questions/245/… – mankoff Nov 11 '10 at 19:23
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4 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

It seems to be possible for some countries, but most countries only have one (or few) native languages.
The table at the bottom of the above link lists which countries support which languages in iTunes.
Some oddities:

Go figure!

Note there have been many complaints about this on the apple forums already.

--jeroen

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1  
In would have a friend write a nice piece in Italian using lots of slang at apple.com/feedback - and put a small (and once you've translated this, you might realize how I feel as one of your English speaking / Italian resident) customers trying to spend money on your app store in Italy. Keep it very polite, but repeat with a different friend / different language - three or four weeks of this from the same email, and I bet you get a response. – bmike♦ Jul 22 '11 at 5:22
up vote 3 down vote

iTunes always sets itself to the country your credit card belongs to. If you insist on the US store then you must use a US credit card.

You can't set this up directly on your phone. You must use iTunes on your computer to change this:

Click on your email address in the top right of iTunes to get to your account details, then click the "change" button next to your "Country/Region". Select a country for which you have (access to) a credit card. iTunes will ask you for credit card information when you save this country setting.

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2  
So there is no way to change the language to English unless I have an american credit card? Was Daffy Duck their lead programmer? Why do they tie your language to the country you reside in... It's a really stupid assumption. – Andreas Bonini Nov 12 '10 at 9:12
It is not only about the language. There are apps that are only available in certain country specific stores (i.e. US only). And of course there is also the issue of taxes. So it is more a legal requirement than a 'stupid assumption'. – Turismo Nov 12 '10 at 9:58
3  
No, it really is a Daffy Duck issue: Apple hasn't learned to separate content from presentation. Example: I'm in Austria and if I use my Austrian credit card then the iPhone App Store is in German - but the rest of my iPhone is in English! I can't have the app in English while using a German CC. – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun Nov 12 '10 at 14:58
@Kop you could set up an american account with no credit card, and it will stay in english. Only down said is that you can't buy stuff this way. :P – Cawas Dec 24 '10 at 19:42
up vote 0 down vote

This is not an issue about the language of the UI but that the iTunes stores are country specific for legal reasons (e.g. taxes).
You cannot purchase anything from an iTunes store in a country you don't have a credit card in.

But you can use the iTunes web interface to browse foreign iTunes stores.
For the US store you can go to http://itunes.apple.com/us/browse

For other countries just replace 'us' with the country code you like to view.

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up vote -1 down vote

you can change the App Store in iTunes to use the store of another country.

Click on iTunes Store (left menu in iTunes), then click the home button on the top. Scroll all the way to the bottom (page footer) and under Manage you will Change Country. There you can change it to whatever you want and the music, apps and other items will change accordingly

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1  
This doesn't work. "Your account is only valid for the Italian iTunes Store. Clicking OK will redirect you there." (this text was in italian). After this I have no choice but to click ok. – Andreas Bonini Nov 11 '10 at 22:04

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