How to Change the VS Code Display Language: Chinese, English, and More

Fri, 08 May 2026 13:18:57 +0800

VS Code supports many display languages. The usual approach is to install the matching language pack, then choose the display language from the Command Palette. If you want to pin VS Code to a specific language, you can also edit the locale value in argv.json.

This method works not only for Simplified Chinese, but also for English, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, and other languages.

Install the Language Pack

If you want to switch to a non-English interface, you usually need to install a language pack first.

Open the Extensions panel in the left sidebar, or press Ctrl+Shift+X.
Search for the target language, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or French.
Select the matching language pack and click Install.
Restart VS Code when prompted.

For Simplified Chinese, the common language pack is Chinese (Simplified). For Traditional Chinese, use Chinese (Traditional).

Change the Language from the Command Palette

This is the recommended method for most users.

Open the Command Palette with Ctrl+Shift+P.
Type Configure Display Language.
Select the Configure Display Language command.
Choose the language you want from the list.
Restart VS Code when prompted.

After restarting, menus, settings pages, and common prompts will use the selected language. If the target language is not listed, install its language pack from the Extensions panel first.

Set the Language Manually in argv.json

If switching from the Command Palette does not work, or if you want to explicitly lock VS Code to a language, you can edit the runtime arguments file directly.

Open the Command Palette with Ctrl+Shift+P.
Type and select Preferences: Configure Runtime Arguments.
Find or add the locale setting.
Change its value to the target language code.
Save the file and restart VS Code.

For example, switch to English:

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{
  "locale": "en"
}

Switch to Simplified Chinese:

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{
  "locale": "zh-cn"
}

Switch to Japanese:

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{
  "locale": "ja"
}

argv.json is a JSON file, so pay attention to commas and quotation marks. If the configuration is invalid, VS Code may not read the language setting correctly.

Common Display Language Codes

Display language	locale
English (US)	`en`
Simplified Chinese	`zh-cn`
Traditional Chinese	`zh-tw`
French	`fr`
German	`de`
Italian	`it`
Spanish	`es`
Japanese	`ja`
Korean	`ko`
Russian	`ru`
Portuguese (Brazil)	`pt-br`
Turkish	`tr`
Bulgarian	`bg`
Hungarian	`hu`

What to Do If the Language Does Not Change

Check the following items in order:

Confirm that the target language pack is installed.
Confirm that locale uses the correct language code. For example, Simplified Chinese is zh-cn, not zh-CN.
Fully close and reopen VS Code after changing the language.
If you edited argv.json manually, check that the JSON syntax is valid.
If the configuration is messy, remove the locale entry and choose the language again through Configure Display Language.

In most cases, Configure Display Language is the simplest option. Edit argv.json only when you need to force a specific language or the Command Palette switch does not take effect.

References

VScode: Change the VS Code display language to Simplified Chinese and switch the VS Code display language