How to switch the display language in Membo | Available languages and which ones switch and which ones don't

1. Conclusion first: There are 5 languages. You switch between them on the settings page. However, it starts in Japanese.

Recruiting band members isn't just for Japanese speakers. It's also for foreigners living in Japan, and those who want to collaborate with Japanese bands. For these people, whether the app opens in a language they can read directly impacts whether they'll continue using it.

This article explains how to switch the display language in Membo , following the names that appear on the screen. It also summarizes what changes and what doesn't when you change the language, and which languages are available on each page. This is the ninth article in our "How to Use" series.

To get straight to the point, there are five display languages you can choose from: Japanese, English, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean. To switch languages, open the settings page from the gear icon on the screen and select your preferred language under "Language Settings." When you first open it, it will start in Japanese, regardless of your browser's language.

However, this article only covers what I've verified by reading the app's program and the production language files. It reflects the situation as of November 10, 2026, and is not a record of actually testing each step on a smartphone. Therefore, there are parts where I use phrases like "what can be gleaned from the program" or "how it works." Things I haven't verified are summarized in the later chapters.

2. Selectable languages and their on-screen display names

The language selection screen displays five buttons. The table below shows the name of each button, its English translation, and the corresponding flag icon. The screen names were taken from the settings of the actual app.

There are two points that are easy to overlook.

• The language names are displayed the same regardless of the language you open the page in. Whether you open it in English or Korean, the buttons will list "Japanese," "English," "Chinese," "Taiwan," and "Korean." The language names are not translated.
• The button for Traditional Chinese is labeled "Taiwan." It's written in Japanese kanji, not "Traditional Chinese." The "Chinese" button is for Simplified Chinese, and the "Taiwan" button is for Traditional Chinese. The English name field says "Traditional Chinese," which can be a helpful clue if you're unsure.

On the settings page, short symbols are displayed to the left of the same five buttons: "JA", "EN", "ZH", "ZH-TW", and "KO". The language names from the table above are displayed to the right.

Previously, it supported eight languages, including Vietnamese, Nepali, and Hindi. These three languages were removed from support on July 31, 2026. Currently, only the five languages shown on the screen appear as buttons. The handling of the remaining three languages will be discussed in a later chapter.

3. How is the language determined when it is opened for the first time?

Many people might think that when you open it for the first time, a screen to choose a language will appear. However, after reading the program code, it turns out to be a little different.

• For first-time users, a language selection screen will not appear. The startup process automatically selects Japanese if no language is selected, and proceeds to the next step.
• The browser and smartphone language settings are not checked. While the program has a defined process for checking the browser language, the location where it's called could not be found. If no language is saved, it defaults to Japanese.

In other words, regardless of whether your smartphone's language is English or Korean, when you first open Membo , it will start in Japanese. If you want to use it in English or Korean, you will need to switch it yourself after opening it.

This information was gleaned from a program and wasn't actually verified by opening it on a completely blank device for the first time. Even so, if you expect it to automatically switch to match your browser's language, you might be confused when a Japanese screen appears. In that case, please follow the steps outlined in the following chapters to switch languages.

Furthermore, it appears that if someone is opening the site for the first time and is not logged in, the system will automatically enter guest mode. The language used in this mode is also Japanese. What you can see as a guest is summarized in the fourth guest article .

4. Create a table showing the entry points for switching languages.

I've created a table showing where you can switch languages, separated into apps and blogs. This is based on what can be gleaned from the screen layout.

There are three things you should remember:

1. To change the language in the app, the usual way to do it is through the settings page .
2. You can also select your language from the "Change Language" option on the authentication screen (the initial screen where you choose to log in or register).
3. I couldn't find an option to select a language on the hamburger menu. Changing the language simply rearranges the menu text.

Switching the blog's language is done through a separate screen from the app's settings. We'll cover blogs in more detail in a later chapter.

5. Steps to switch on the settings page

This is the most basic procedure for switching languages within an app.

1. Click the gear icon on the screen to open the "Settings" page.
2. Look for the section labeled "Language Settings". The current language name will be displayed below "Current Language".
3. Select the language you want to use from the five buttons.

Pressing the button switches the language. I couldn't find a confirmation button on the settings page. The system is designed so that pressing the button initiates the language switching process.

The headings on the settings page vary depending on the language. After switching, the headings on the settings page will be as follows:

If you accidentally switch to a language you can't read, don't worry. The language names of the five buttons on the settings page are designed to look the same no matter which language you open it in (I confirmed this by reading the settings file). Just find the button with the name of a language you can read and press it again to switch back. The gear icon is a picture, so you can find it even if you can't read the words.

Even as a guest, you can use the gear icon and the settings page. However, within the settings page, the "Notification Settings" option is only available when logged in. The notification mechanism is explained in the seventh article on notifications .

6. Switch languages from "Change Language" on the authentication screen.

Another entry point is the authentication screen. This screen appears when you're not logged in, and it asks you to register with your email address, log in with Google or another service, or select guest. At the bottom of this screen, there's a globe icon with the words "Change Language" written on it.

This wording is fixed in English. Even if you open it in Japanese or Korean, it will still say "Change Language." Since this wording remains even on screens in languages you can't read, it's an easy entry point to find.

When you press "Change Language," the authentication screen will disappear and the screen will switch to a language selection screen. This screen is structured as follows:

• Headline: "Select your language" (fixed wording)
• Five buttons. Each one displays a flag, a language name, and an English name.
• The "Continue" button (with fixed text) cannot be pressed until a language is selected.

Select a language and press "Continue." The language will be saved, and the screen language will change. If you are not already logged in, you will be returned to the authentication screen. If you are already logged in, you will proceed to the main screen.

The login method, along with the on-screen text, is summarized in the eighth article on logging in .

7. When you switch, the words on the screen change immediately.

When you switch languages, the words on the screen change immediately. There is no need to reopen the page. Reading the program, the following are updated during the language switching process:

• Words on the screen, such as buttons, headings, and explanatory text.
• Page language information (information that tells the browser "what language this page is in")
• Page Title
• Words on a hamburger menu

The five languages have the same number of words displayed on the screen. When we read the production language files, we found that all languages had the same number of items, and there were no missing items for any of the four languages compared to Japanese. Therefore, it is unlikely that an issue like "only this language has buttons that remain in Japanese" will occur due to the design.

For example, the guest button on the authentication screen changes depending on the language, as follows:

The "Go to Web" link in the hamburger menu also changes according to the language. As far as the program can tell, this link is designed to take you to an address with the current language applied. You can see this by opening the web version of a blog or other website while keeping the language selected in the app.

When you press a button on the settings page, if the currently open screen is for recruitment, search, music, or video, the content is reloaded. This suggests that language switching is reflected in the screen content as well.

8. The selected language will be remembered by this device's browser.

After selecting a language, which language will Membo start in the next time you open it? This is another point that can easily cause confusion.

The selected language is saved in the device's browser. I couldn't find any process in the switching process that links the language to the account so that the same language is used on other devices. It's safer to assume that the language is "remembered on this device." I can't definitively say that "languages are not linked to accounts" because I haven't read the server-side processing.

When you switch devices, or when using the app on both a computer and a smartphone, please select the language once for each device. We haven't verified how saving differs between the smartphone's browser and apps added to the home screen. Instructions for adding apps to the home screen are provided on the app installation page , specific to your device.

Deleting your browser's site data (such as cookies) will also delete your saved language settings, reverting the language back to Japanese. This is based on observations of the program's structure and has not been tested on a real device. Instructions on how to delete your browser's site data can be found in your browser's official help documentation. This is general information, not specific to Membo .

• Delete, allow, and manage cookies in Chrome (Google Chrome Help - Desktop version instructions)
• Clear your cache and cookies - iPhone and iPad (Google Account Help)

Deleting site data may affect not only Membo 's language settings but also the saved content of other sites. Please read the help instructions before deciding to delete anything.

9. Terminals where the three discontinued languages were stored.

What happens to devices that previously had Vietnamese, Nepali, or Hindi selected? These three languages were removed from support on July 31, 2026. They no longer appear on the selection screen or the settings page.

Upon reading the program code, it appears that terminals where the three discontinued languages were saved are designed to open in English upon startup. The fact that it switches to English instead of Japanese is something that's easy to overlook.

• The translation data and language files for the three languages have not been deleted. However, you cannot select them from the screen.
• After opening it in English, you can change the language to your preference on the settings page.

This behavior is based on information gleaned from the program, and was not actually tested on a terminal that stored an obsolete language. Furthermore, the appearance of the settings page, such as how the buttons light up, was not checked afterward. If you open it after a long time and find the language is different from what you expected, please remember the contents of this chapter.

10. Things that switch and things that don't.

When you switch languages, some things on the screen change, while others don't. This can be confusing, so I've created a table to illustrate.

Here's the most important distinction: "On-screen text" and "text written by a person" are two different things. The text in menus and buttons is provided by the app and changes when you switch languages. On the other hand, the title, body, profile, and message of a job posting are written by a person. They don't change just by switching the on-screen language.

So, what happens to text written by humans? Reading the program code reveals that automatic translation isn't performed within the browser. The front-end (screen) translation function is completely disabled. When translated text is displayed, it's received from the server. In the next chapter, we'll organize the information into recruitment and messages.

11. Relationship between the translation of recruitment notices and the displayed language.

I've summarized how to find job postings in the first article on how to find job postings . Here, I'll focus on how "display language" affects job postings.

Reading the program reveals the following:

• When retrieving a list of job postings, the app sends the current display language to the server. The system is designed to return content tailored to the display language. However, we haven't actually tested and verified the response of the production server.
• The imported job postings are automatically translated. Job postings collected from Japanese job sites are automatically translated into supported languages using the translation function. Machine translation (Google Cloud Translation) is used for this translation.
• When you post something yourself, the language displayed at that time is sent as the original language. This means that a post written on an English screen will be recorded with English as the original language.

Machine translation is very convenient, but it can sometimes contain unnatural phrasing. Important details such as instrument names, genres, practice frequency, and meeting locations should not be decided solely based on the translated text; it's best to confirm them via message. This isn't an app-specific instruction, but rather a general guideline for using machine translation.

I haven't checked how it appears on the screen for languages for which translations haven't been created yet, so I won't write about that in this article.

12. Message translation is done via a separate switch.

Message translation works separately from the display language settings. I've explained it in detail in Chapter 12 of the sixth article on how to use messages . Here, I'll just briefly summarize the key points.

• The location is the globe icon in the upper right corner of the conversation screen. When you press it, it will say "Translation enabled," and when you press it again, it will say "Translation disabled." It is OFF by default.
• Only received messages are translated. Messages you send are not translated.
• The language to which the message will be translated is the language displayed on the screen. In other words, if your screen is set to English, the message you receive will be translated into English.
• Only logged-in users can use this feature. There are limits on the number of uses and characters. Any text exceeding the limit will be displayed as is.
• Since this is a machine translation, it's best to confirm important details such as the date, time, and amount to be on the safe side.

Message translation doesn't start automatically just by changing the display language to English. You need to manually turn on the globe icon on the conversation screen. This is a common point of confusion. Remember that the display language is "the language on the screen," and the translation switch is "whether or not to translate the received text." For an overview of how to use messages, please refer to article 164 .

13. The blog language can be switched using "?lang=".

So far, we've been talking about apps. This Membo blog is also available in five languages. The mechanism is a little different from the app.

You can switch the language of a blog post by adding "?lang=" to the end of the address. The supported languages are ja (without the suffix), en, zh, zh-TW, and ko. For example, the blog list can be opened at the following address. We confirmed that all of these work on November 10, 2026.

• English: https://membo.info/blog/?lang=en
• Korean: https://membo.info/blog/?lang=ko
• Traditional Chinese: https://membo.info/blog/?lang=zh-TW

The previous seventh notification article can also be opened in English. I confirmed that when I opened the English version of the notification article , the page language information was set to English.

At the top of the blog, there is a globe button. The button is labeled "Language" in English. When you press it, a language panel opens, displaying flags and short symbols (JA, EN, ZH, TW, KO). The names that appear when you select a flag are "日本語", "English", "简体中文", "繁體中文", and "한국어".

In the app's language selection, the button for Traditional Chinese was labeled "Taiwan." In the blog's panel, it was labeled "Traditional Chinese." The app and the blog use different names for the same Traditional Chinese language. Both refer to the same language.

When you select a language on the panel, the selected language is saved in the browser, and the same page is reopened by adding "?lang=" to the address. Reading the program, it appears that the name used to remember languages in the blog is the same as the name used in the app. This suggests that the app and blog are designed to reuse the same language within the same site. I haven't actually verified whether the language selected in the app is carried over to the blog.

What happens when you specify a discontinued language in the address? When I opened it with Vietnamese (?lang=vi), an English page was returned. I haven't tried Nepali or Hindi.

14. The spot pages are only available in Japanese and English.

There's a page listing music venues, including studios and live music venues across Japan. Instructions on how to use the map are in the fifth map article . Unlike the blog, this venue page is only available in Japanese and English .

• Japanese: https://membo.info/spots/
• English: https://membo.info/en/spots/

At the top of the page, you'll see two letters, "JA" and "EN," which you use to switch between languages. Even in the program settings, the only translation options for the spot are Japanese and English.

Since the blog is available in five languages, one might assume the same would be true for the spots pages. However, on November 10, 2026, when I opened the addresses "/ko/spots/" and "/zh-TW/spots/", which correspond to Korean and Traditional Chinese, both resulted in a "Not Found" error (404). I did not try the address corresponding to Simplified Chinese.

I haven't checked how the names and information of the spots appear on the app's map. Just remember that the spots' pages are in both Japanese and English.

15. List the languages for each page.

The content covered so far is summarized page by page. This allows you to see at a glance "where, which language is available, and where to switch between them."

This table shows that the word "language" refers to different things depending on the location. The language of the app screen, the language of the blog, the language of the location, the translation language—each requires a different location to switch. Changing one doesn't necessarily mean the others will change automatically.

Links to other pages can be found on the Help page and the News page , which contains the latest announcements. Language support may change in the future.

16. How to check when language isn't working as expected

Based on the information above, I've summarized some common problematic situations and the order in which to check them.

As the table shows, you're likely to run into problems if you assume that "changing your smartphone's language will also change the app's language." Programs don't actually look at the browser's language. Changing the browser or smartphone's language is a matter of browser settings.

From this point onward, the information is general about browsers, not specifically about Membo . If you want to change the display language of your browser itself, please refer to your browser's official help documentation. This article does not assume that changing the browser's display language will automatically change the language used by Membo .

• Translate the page, change the language of Chrome (Google Chrome Help - Desktop version instructions)

If the process doesn't work, please note down the text displayed on the screen and the device and browser you are using, then check the help page for the latest instructions.

17. Things not confirmed in this article

Let me be honest. The following points have not been verified, so they are not stated as fact in this article.

• I tested each screen individually : The text on the screens was read from the language file of the production app. I did not visually verify the rendered screens.
• For first-time users, the program actually starts in Japanese : This is based on what I've confirmed by reading the program code.
• I only observed the actual behavior of a device with the three discontinued languages saved : it opens in English. I haven't checked how it looks on the settings page.
• What happens when you add "?lang=" to the app's address ? No place for the app itself to read it was found. I haven't actually tested it.
• Is there a server-side process for saving the display language to the account ?: I haven't read the server-side configuration process.
• How it looks in languages where the job posting isn't translated : I haven't checked.
• Regarding the list of job postings, the production server response : The program sends the display language, but the production response has not been tested.
• How the language setting in the profile affects the display : Not confirmed.
• How the names of spots appear on the app's map : I haven't checked.
• Blog behavior when specifying Nepali and Hindi languages with "?lang=" : I only tested Vietnamese.
• The address of the page for the spot, corresponding to Simplified Chinese : Not tested.

The information written here may change with app updates. The number of supported languages has also changed over time. For the latest information, please check the Membo news page , help page , and push notification usage page .

18. Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How many languages can I choose from?

There are five languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, Traditional Chinese (Taiwanese), and Korean. Vietnamese, Nepali, and Hindi were removed from support on July 31, 2026.

Q. Where do I switch languages?

Open the settings page from the gear icon on the screen and select your language under "Language Settings." If you are not logged in, you can also select it from "Change Language" on the authentication screen.

Q. Does it switch automatically to match the browser's language from the start?

It's designed not to switch languages. It doesn't check your browser's language, so it will start in Japanese the first time you open it. Please select your desired language after opening.

Q. Will a screen appear at the beginning where I can choose the language?

It's not designed to appear automatically. The language selection screen appears when you proceed from "Change Language" on the authentication screen.

Q. Will the language you chose be used again next time?

If you're using the same device and browser, the program will start with the language you previously selected. If you're using a different device or browser, it will start with Japanese, so please select a language again.

Q. If I change the language to English, will the job postings also be in English?

The on-screen text will be in English. The job posting text written by a human will not change simply by switching the on-screen language. There is a system in place to automatically translate imported job postings. However, since the translation is machine-generated, it's best to confirm important details via message.

Q. Will the messages also be translated into English?

Turning on the globe icon on the conversation screen will translate received messages into the displayed language. It's initially off. For more details, please see the message article .

Q. Can I read the blog in English or Korean?

Yes, it's readable. You can either add "?lang=en" or "?lang=ko" to the end of the address, or select it using the globe icon in the top bar.

Q. Can I read the Spots page in five languages?

Only Japanese and English are supported. As of November 10, 2026, no addresses in Korean or other languages were found.

Q. When I opened it after a long time, it was in English.

Devices that previously selected one of the three unsupported languages will open in English. Please re-select your desired language on the settings page.

19. Summary: Language can be set "on a per-device basis via the settings page."

This article explains how to switch the display language in Membo , organized according to the names of the screens.

1. There are five languages to choose from : Japanese, English, Chinese, Traditional Chinese (Taiwanese), and Korean. The language name will be displayed the same regardless of which language you open the page in.
2. When you first open it, it starts in Japanese ; it doesn't take your browser's language into account. The language selection screen doesn't appear initially either.
3. To switch languages, go to the settings page : open "Language Settings" from the gear icon. You can also select it from "Change Language" on the authentication screen.
4. The language you select will be remembered by the browser on that device ; you will need to select it again on a different device or browser.
5. Devices that had the three discontinued languages saved will open in English ; you can change the language in the settings page.
6. The text displayed on the screen and the text written by a person are different things : menus and buttons will switch between them. Recruitment and message translation are handled by a separate system.
7. The blog has five sections marked with "?lang=", and the spots are only available in Japanese and English : the available languages and where to switch them differ from page to page.

Switching languages is a one-time, slightly cumbersome process. Setting it to a language you find easy to read will make finding listings and exchanging messages much easier. This "How to Use" series has so far covered: 1. Finding Listings, 2. Favorites, 3. Profile, 4. Guest Reach, 5. Map, 6. Messaging, 7. Notifications, and 8. Login. In this ninth installment, we've organized how to format the language on the screen. For information about the writers, please see the Writer Introduction page.