The invention belongs to the technical field of computers, and particularly relates to a system language switching method and terminal equipment. The method comprises the steps of firstly obtaining apreset image for setting system languages of a target terminal, then, extracting text messages in the image, determining the target language corresponding to the text messages, and finally switching the system language of the target terminal into the target language. According to the method, a user just needs to prepare an image for setting the system languages of the target terminal in advance, for example, according to a piece of paper with Chinese, the system can obtain text messages on the image through image obtaining, text message extracting and the like, it is determined that the text messages are in Chinese, and finally the system language of the target terminal is switched into Chinese. The whole process operation is easy and convenient, and the user experience is greatly improved.