10 Best Foreign Language Fonts (Expert Picks)
Have you learned a new language and are looking forward to writing with the best foreign language fonts?
Whether you’re looking for fonts with multilingual support or lovely lettering with a foreign aesthetic, here are our ten best options.
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1. Native American Cherokee Tribe
The first font on our list of 10 Best Foreign Languages Fonts comes to us from SweetRocketSkyStudio, a small design team based in North Carolina.
They mostly focused on creating beautiful-looking silhouette patterns based on various themes.
Moreover, they also have quite a few fonts under their belt, including this one.
The design itself is quite a thing to behold, taking inspiration from, and trying their best to remain faithful to Native American Cherokee writing, this font sports clean, yet ornate lines that really catch the eye.
If you live in an area like North Carolina, and especially if you work in a hospital or other public service, you may have thought of learning at least the basics of the Cherokee language.
This font can provide an important stepping stone for you.
On the flip side, many indigenous people don’t have the best grasp of the English language.
And since regular English fonts are limited when it comes to the required symbols, this font is perfect for any business or public center frequented by these native Americans, or to simply print out a poster to teach children at a school.
This font supports the entire Cherokee alphabet (which is actually a syllabary).
Pros & Benefits:
- Fits a very specific purpose, and as such very few, if any, fonts like this exist.
- Extremely cheap as compared to the wider market, at only $3.49.
- Perfect for indigenous hospitals, schools, or even Cherokee-themed wall art.
2. Des Montagnes
Next on the list is a multilingual typeface by InkMeThis, also known as Kestrel Montes, a Californian designer.
She is also a calligrapher responsible for over 20 beautiful fonts.
Fittingly for a calligrapher, in a handwritten style, though this one is a bit less extravagant than her other work.
Des Montagnes has a simplistic, and easy-to-read design.
This clean, modern font looks more like neat handwriting when contrasted black against a white background.
It has subtle serifs that combine soft curls with sharper, straight lines.
Need a catch-all font for your wedding, baby shower, or other such event invitations?
This font’s combination of legibility and elegance, as well as its support of multiple languages, make it more than perfect for printing out the cards, especially if some of your guests don’t speak English.
This typeface as we previously mentioned, has multilingual support, which means it supports and displays symbols used in non-English languages in this case, accents, diacritics, and more.
Lastly, this font also supports 364 characters and comes in six different styles.
Pros & Benefits:
- Relatively cheap compared to similar fonts, at only $10.
- It’s very clean and easy to read.
- This font supports multiple languages.
- It also works great with a variety of other fonts.
3. Happy Hands
If you have a family member or know someone in the deaf and hard of hearing community, you may have thought to learn sign language.
If you don’t know where to start, this font is perfect for that exact purpose.
Happy Hands is a fun and easy way to learn sign language, from A to Z and 0 to 10.
It also works great as a unique print for any of your designing needs, be it a T-shirt, poster, card, coffee mug, etc.
This font was made by InkCloudDesign, a small design company primarily focused on graphics and illustrations.
They also have a good amount of creative fonts as well.
As for technical details, this is a fairly simplistic font, only covering uppercase letters and basic digits, though this is exactly enough for its main purpose of being a simple method to learn the ASL alphabet.
Pros & Benefits:
- This font is very affordable, only costing you $5.
- It is an enjoyable and easy way to learn or teach sign language, especially for kids.
- Happy hands font is great for quirky print on birthday invitations.
4. Bluebeard
The Bluebeard font is simply aesthetically themed around foreign, old, or non-English languages, with no multilingual support for the most part.
You may recognize this font’s style from newspaper titles such as The New York Times and others.
This beautiful typeface by Canada Type, a Toronto-based digital design company which since 2004 has made over 220 families of fonts, has tried to capture that type of look, with their own personal twist.
With its very detailed uppercase letters reminiscent of old children’s fables, contrasting with the more simple but equally elegant lowercase, this font has a very flashy appearance.
However, the designers knew to not overstep this as the typeface remains perfectly readable.
As we just implied, Bluebeard would feel right at home on a newspaper, be it a real one you’re making, or an imitation meant for printing on a wall or in an illustration.
This font, available in Opentype or Truetype, supports 218 and 219 characters respectively, both uppercase and lowercase.
Pros & Benefits:
- It has an extravagant design, without becoming too illegible
- Bluebeard is available in 2 formats, both Opentype or Truetype.
- Great for newspapers, real or fake.
5. French Bistro
Cutting the list in half we have number five, from someone you may recognize from previous posts, Jeff Levine, a designer behind over 1500 font families.
As the name implies, French Bistro is based on a small style of restaurants, that mostly focus on drinks and light foods.
These are termed bistros which originated from France.
As such, this font is perfect for use on a menu, or general lettering across a more modern take on these classic French establishments.
The typeface itself has a more casual look than traditional French lettering, with some lowercase symbols mixed into the otherwise entirely uppercase font.
It has thick, bold lines that contrast with smaller fine ones to create a truly special design.
Available in two styles, Regular and Oblique, this ‘all caps’ Opentype font contains 213 characters and supports all basic Latin languages.
Pros & Benefits:
- This font has one of a kind look, with uppercase and lowercase letters mixed with each other.
- Equal parts casual and elegant, this is the perfect middle ground.
- Best for use in restaurants, especially french themed.
6. Sketsa Ramadhan
Going back to the more common definition of foreign, this font was made by Hendra Pratama.
She’s an Indonesian type designer mainly focused on creating high-quality script fonts, based on vintage typography and handwritten calligraphy style, that are used all over the world.
This is a fauxlang typeface, which means it replicates the style and feel of Arabic writing, using English characters.
But, this does not support Arabic symbols, as such this font has very long and expressive serifs, as well as both uppercase and lowercase letters that flow into each other, with beautiful ornaments, all while remaining easy to read.
Sketsa Ramadhan is perfect for any restaurant serving middle eastern cuisine based in an English-speaking country.
It is also suitable for any graphic design related to Islamic culture, including a book or movie title, or a logotype for a Middle-east associated brand.
This font supports both uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers, punctuation, and the most common symbols.
Furthermore, it is also available in an alternate style with differently placed decorations and serifs.
Pros & Benefits:
- You can get it for free for non-commercial use.
- It is a very unique font, not many in this specific style exist.
- This font exists in two unique styles to fit your specific needs.
7. Korean Calligraphy
At number seven comes an amazing-looking font by hiJoju, a graphic designer and artist, mostly specializing in prints, who as far as we could tell has only made one font, in this.
Korean Calligraphy is, as may be obvious, based on Hangeul, the Korean alphabet.
It attempts to translate strokes and lines traditionally used in crafting each symbol by hand to the English language in the form of a typeface.
Through its use of irregular lines, and subtle serifs that look like ink trails make this font look very organic yet tidy and legible.
As you can imagine, this all lowercase font is great for any design related to Korean or even general oriental culture, such as wall art, English text in any Asian restaurant’s menu, or whatever your imagination sees fit.
This typeface supports lowercase letters, numbers 0-9, and the most commonly used symbols.
Pros & Benefits:
- Since it’s based on Hangeul, this font is perfect for Korean or other Asian restaurants.
- Korean Calligraphy has a very natural-looking handwritten style.
- You can download it for free for non-commercial, personal use.
8. Strengthen
Greetings comrade, taking up spot number eight is a font by Vladimir Nikolic.
The designer is involved in almost 1000 very diverse fonts, many of them, including this one being based on various worldwide cultures.
Strengthen is based on the lettering used in Slavic languages, especially Russian, with a clear soviet inkling.
Apart from that, with its use of straight, thick lines, made even larger-looking by the broad drop shadow, with very conservative use of curvature, conveys rigidness and strength.
The Soviet or Russian aesthetic has been rising in popularity in western countries as of late.
And, this font is a great fit for your graphic designs, be it a videogame or book title, a poster, or a T-shirt.
This font is all-caps and supports letters A-Z and numbers 0-9, as well as some basic symbols.
Pros & Benefits:
- It is free for personal, noncommercial use, though the license is relatively cheap at $12.99.
- This font is perfect for a poster or graphic tee based on the Soviet period of history.
- The Strengthen font is created by a very experienced designer versed in various worldwide letterings.
9. Achilles
Next to last on our list is Achilles, which, as its name implies, is based on the Greek alphabet.
Its symbols are being directly pulled from it (for example uppercase O is Ω, omega), though with some clear inspiration from Roman lettering as well.
Another fauxlang font, Achilles is best used for design projects such as movie posters, books or, videogame titles, etc. inspired by Greek and Roman culture, in an English-speaking context.
This typeface was designed by Iconian fonts, a small company run by one person out of Texas.
Iconian fonts is responsible for making over 1000 all free-to-use fonts (personal use) over the past 20 years.
Each font was made with as much care and effort put in as this one.
With 17 different styles to choose from, including outlined and gradient, this font certainly has more options than your average free font or even paid font for that matter.
Achilles supports upper and lowercase letters, as well as accented characters, numbers 0-9, and a large number of symbols, all stylized as well of course.
Pros & Benefits:
- This font is free for non-commercial use.
- A huge amount of styles and characters as compared to other free fonts.
- Achilles Font is perfect for greek restaurants or other businesses.
10. Alghorie
Last on the list, but certainly, not the least is Alghorie Std, designed by Manifestoyz.
Manifestoyz has made several fonts related to both Slavic and Arabic culture.
The Alghorie font is a more modern and sleek take on a font based on the Russian alphabet.
If the previously reviewed Strengthen was a portrayal of the Soviet era of the past, Alghorie Std is a representation of modern-day Slavic countries, or Russia, without the overt Soviet aesthetic.
That’s why its design is much tighter and more rounded and includes lowercase lettering.
These rounded simple characters contrast with the straighter sharper letters more reminiscent of spot number eight to create a unique feel.
Alghorie Std is perfect if your project involves Slavic imagery, but you want a more contemporary look, maybe a simplistic poster.
You could also even use it in a videogame set in a present-day Slavic country.
Surely, this font would feel right at home on a computer in such a game.
This font supports both uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers 0-9 and most of the commonly used symbols.
Pros & Benefits:
- Alghorie Std is a modern alternative for a Slavic-inspired typeface.
- It supports both uppercase and lowercase.
- This font has a clean design that makes it easy to read despite some more detailed characters.
And now that I’ve provided you with the 10 best foreign languages fonts, I hope you found the one that is right for you.
The three first fonts listed are designed and meant for practical use, be it educational or with non-Latin language support, or meant for a relatively unrepresented language among typefaces.
These fonts represent the type we know many people who research foreign fonts need.
The remaining seven are more or less purely aesthetic, meant for designs in an English-speaking setting, but with a foreign inspiration, and as such don’t offer multilingual support.
Apart from this, the list is also divided in two, with the first half being all pay to use, and the second half, six to ten, all free to download from anywhere.
Keep in mind, however, this simply means for personal use, and they do not all allow for free commercial use without the purchase of licensing.
I hope you enjoyed these 10 best foreign languages fonts.
Final Thoughts
Whether you were looking for a quick and easy way to learn a language, I hope you found the best foreign language fonts that you just learned!
If you needed a font to write to your foreign family members, or just wanted authentic looking text for your design, be it what it may, we hope this list of best fonts for foreign languages helps you find what you need.
Though the fonts were not ordered from best to worst or vice-versa, we do play favorites here to a certain degree, although with the sheer level of variance we added it’s hard to choose just one.
My personal favorite among these fonts, after carefully weighing each option is, coincidentally, number one: Native American Cherokee Tribe.
Though out of all the options on this list it may have the most niche applications, this font feels that niche extremely well, and its design is very faithful to the Cherokee syllabary.
What do you think?
What is your personal favorite among these 10 foreign languages fonts?
Share with us down in the comment section!
If you already had a favorite in mind that didn’t make it in, we’re always happy to hear feedback in the comments.
If this article on Foreign Language Fonts helped you, you might also want to check our other reads below:
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