I can only see audiobooks in German. How may I change the default language?

[dma555]

See, it's weird: My Spotify is in English, my Windows is in English... and yet I only find German audiobook results. Maybe it's because I'm logged in with a German Facebook account, since I don't believe that I gave Spotify permission to track my location (and thus know that I'm currently in Germany).

Point is, how may I change the default language of the results that I see?

When I search for "Ken Follett", for example, I only see the German versions of his books, though when I search for "Winter of the World" (one of his novels) directly, it does come up with its English version.

[ezymove]

They are American and can’t imagine people speaking differrent languages living in the same country 🙈

[hcs42]

I think you see mostly German audiobooks because there are a lot of German audiobooks on Spotify and comparatively few English ones.

These two quotes show the special situation of German audiobooks on Spotify:

> Usage of [Spotify] was skyrocketing in Germany. "I couldn't figure out why, and no one seemed to have an idea," recalls the soft-spoken Swede. So he boarded a plane to Berlin, where he huddled with his team and soon discovered that the German music labels own the rights to most audiobooks in the country and had been uploading them onto Spotify. "By accident, we ended up becoming one of the largest audio platforms, period, and one of the largest audiobook platforms in Germany," he says. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/spotify-aims-become-worlds-no-1-audio-platform-1256162

> In Germany, some of the more progressive publishers have been making their catalogues available on music streaming platforms for some time. https://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/spotify-books-spotify-762571#

If you try to find information on the web about English audiobooks on Spotify, you will find articles such as https://profounder.com/audiobooks-on-spotify. You will notice that it talks about quite old books that are available (whose copyright has expired):

> For example, you can basically listen to all of William Shakespeare’s plays, including tragedies such as Hamlet and Julius Caesar or historical dramas such as Henry V and Richard III. You can also listen to the classic F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and tenebrous works like The Shadow of Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft.

Still, there are around 1600 English audiobooks on Spotify collected here: https://profounder.com/spotify/ It seems that I can access most of them, though not all (I live in Hungary and have a Hungarian bank).

[cipri-tom]

You're a legend ! Thanks a lot for the insight !

[0lmagalhaes0]

That's not a solution.
As paid customers, we should have the freedom to choose which language we consume your product. Even in family plans, for that matter. My wife is German, I'm Brazilian and we communicate in English, for example, and there are more people in a similar situation than one might think.
But most importantly, language is often not a simple matter of choice for people, in contrast to a company that is present worldwide.
If the problem are regional distributing licences (which is ridiculous in the globalised economy we live in the 21st century), open at least content in English, as a first step, or allow users to consume your product entirely based on their devices' regional settings.
To do nothing about content's language is a big middle-finger for your Premium customers.

[DenoBeno]

I have found a slution to this issue that is satisfying my need for English book in Austria. 

There is a separate application called Spooks that is searching for books on spotify and allows me to set the language.  Only German or English is possible in Austria,  unfortunately. 

[DenoBeno]

That's not working for me, but it's good to know that it's possible.

For a different approach, try Spooks application. It's worlds better for finding books than Spotify and links to Spotify for the content.

[xxmarikoxx]

Thanks I'll look in to that lol.

I'm raising my kiddo bilingual like i was (my dad is from us mom is german so)

Since I'm a single mom i like to have his tv or aufio books in English as he hears German every where else lol and no one can tell ne there is no english paw patrol man haha

[Lavrentis0811]

The other way round is equally annoying. I'm German, moved to Cyprus and now my 4 year old daughter has lost access to all her German audio books, she's furious of course. She doesn't speak English yet and there's not much Greek content. This is ridiculous and showing that Spotify is stuck in a traditional view on the world that doesn't exist any more.

[melissaantic]

this is unbelievable. it is 2021 and this issue still exists. The problem is not solved. Swiss people have a hard time to or no way at all to change their region. Listen to your consumers Spotify. This will be one of the reason subscribers will either choose to make a fake account or leave.

[DenoBeno]

• Actually, Spotify is from Sweden. 

Look, I've been listening to tons of books in different languages on Spotify for a while now. It works great, but requires an external app to find the books. This app used to be called Spooks, now a new version is called lismio. 

That's it. Spotify should officially endorse this app or buy it and close this issue.

[DenoBeno]

Here are some examples of children books in English, that I see with lismio in Austria. It's quite a sizeable catalogue.

 

 

[WilliamEB]

It is now September 2022 and the issue is still not resolved. I am also unable to change my billing method to another country, which is of course a ridiculous solution for changing the language settings for a paid service. We have paid full price for this subscription and should therefore have full access to the content being advertised. Furthermore, in several countries, access and language availability is regulated by law. Spotify, please prioritize this issue immediately.

[mel412]

Still no solution found?

First post was in 2017, now 5 years later the problem is still on the table?

We should have the right to choose the language depending on the country we live in.

[Sike]

I live in Switzerland and want my kids to be able to listen to english audiobooks. 

This should not be so hard. I was watching the Spotify Mini Series on Netflix. This is not really what the founders had in mind... 

Spotify needs to get their act together!

[ljredux]

Isn't Spotify headquartered in Sweden?  I must admit, I only checked if that was still the case because whenever this kind of problem arises it's usually with a company in an Anglophone country.   (I'm reminded of abandoning Letterboxd because it translated all film titles to English meaning I didn't recognise more than 80% of my own films on my profile page.)

[cghost]

Same problem. Living in the Netherlands, but most Dutch voice 'actors' have extremely correct and flat voices so would really want to listen in English. Especially for audiobooks that were originally in this language, as Dutch has a far less varied vocabulary and/or Dutch translators tend to be unimaginative in their translations, being to scared to use words that the public might not be familiar with.

[DenoBeno]

Install "Lismio" (formerly spooks) app, and use that one to search for the books. Works like a charm. 

[l_lsername]

I live in Germany but English is my primary language. I want to enjoy your audiobook feature I learned about recently. The title I want to listen to is available on your platform but only in German. Can you help me get access to audiobooks in English please? I’d love to be able to appreciate your audiobook feature.

[yosri21]

2023 and just one month to be 2024

as you can see - everyone has this problem, and Spotify with not - under any circumstance