I had the annoying experience of losing access to my Facebook account and finding that the language had been changed to Chinese. Again in Chinese, I began receiving email notifications when my account was added to groups, but I was unable to access my account because the password had been changed.

When you try to log into your account on Facebook, it just takes you to a page with a padlock and a lot of Chinese symbols, so they aren’t much help with this issue. It’s also quite tough to just speak to a real person and explain the matter to them so they can fix it.

The problem with this is that most English speakers are unable to understand any Chinese, therefore we are unable to even locate the menu option to switch back to English. We are unable to reset our account because it is locked on Chinese and is just a maze of symbols! We appear to be in a bind because this “account locked” page doesn’t offer a language change option.

But after a little experimenting, I was able to solve it. By experimenting a little and opening a few other tabs, you can find workarounds for returning the language to English. Simply switch the language by opening a page in the same browser that has a language change option on it.

Here is a simple guide on how to accomplish it:

1. Attempt to log in to your Facebook account
2. Open up the Facebook help page in another browser
3. Copy & paste this page into your original browser (new tab)
4. Change the language back to English (top right corner)
5. Refresh the login page or log in again.
6. Follow the steps to recover your account.

Let’s go through the process of getting your account back in step by step, easy form, with screenshots so you know what to do.

Step 1.  Bring Up The Chinese Language Padlock Page on Facebook

The first step is simple: simply attempt to connect into your Facebook account as usual and wait for it to display the confusing page in Chinese with the padlock on it. In order to be prepared to start resetting everything once you get it back into English, it’s also a good idea to keep the email associated with that Facebook account open in a new tab.

Step 2. Open Up The Facebook Help Page in a Different Browser

It might be possible to do this in the current browser you’re using, but it might just keep loading in Chinese; therefore, it’s preferable to start with a new browser to keep things distinct and straightforward.

Copy and paste this URL to a Facebook page into the address bar of a new browser (such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Opera, etc.) to launch it. The usual Facebook support page looks something like this in English:

It should also display in English as you are using a different browser that is not linked to the one you used to sign into the compromised account. To help you navigate the page when we load it up in Chinese, we did it this way so that you can get a sense of where everything is on the page. While you could simply put this into your original browser, we’re trying to keep things as straightforward and “step-by-step” as we can.

Step 3. Load This Page In Your Original Browser in a New Tab

Simply copy and paste the same help page link into the original browser you used to attempt to log into Facebook as the following step. Simply paste it into a new tab that is open next to the Chinese website for the padlock before loading it.

This page will probably display in Chinese if you paste it into the connected browser you’re using to log into Facebook because your account has been configured to Chinese. The help page will now appear something like this: Because language preferences are applied to all tabs you open in any logged-in browser:

But because you know how the page is laid out having seen it in English, it should be easy to change the language settings now.

Step 4. Change Language Back To English In Top Right Corner

Once you are familiar with the layout of this page, you may still locate and modify the language options by selecting the box in the top right corner as follows:

You should be given the option to change the language in a pop-up box. To change the language, enter “english” or scroll down and click the blue box:

The page should now change back to the English version you initially loaded in Step 2.

Step 5. Refresh or Reload The Original Login Page

This should have reset your language settings for all new Facebook tabs opened in that browser back to English as long as you completed the final step in a different tab on the same browser that you initially tried to log in and received the page in Chinese with the padlock on it.

It should now appear in English if you refresh, dismiss and reopen the initial padlock login page, or start the full login procedure over by clicking an email link or opening a new tab. It will mention something about your account being disabled, but at least it’s now in English. This occurred to me a few months ago, but I neglected to capture a screenshot.

Step 6. Follow The Steps To Reset Your Account

Just follow the instructions on the “account locked” page to reset/recover your Facebook account now that everything has been changed back to English. You might need to change your password, and confirmation emails will be delivered to your inbox.

Make sure your password is changed to a stronger one than the one you were using before to prevent this from happening again.

Here are some helpful hints for coming up with a new password: