Like a lot of open-source programs, R comes with the highly annoying “feature” of being extremely localized. Not only does it default to your system’s language, but also it makes it a pain in the neck to manage to change the language: using the “GUI preferences” menu (or whatever it is in your locale, haha ^^) to change the language doesn’t even seem work… (you need to restart R for a language change to apply, but when you restart your custom configuration doesn’t get loaded – awesome)
But, well, someone asked the question on an R mailing list hosted by the University of Newcastle, Australia, and the solution is to run R with the added command line parameter LANGUAGE=en (edit the shortcut to R and add this stuff at the end).
On a side note, the solutioner points out a very common mistake made by localizers:
“Apparently some users want Windows in their native language, but not R.”
Dear localizers, you appear to forget or ignore the fact that some people run your software on their work computer, where they don’t have the choice of their OS nor of their language. You also seem to ignore that in some countries it’s pretty hard to grab a legal non-local copy of Windows. So please, don’t make it hard for users to change your program’s language back to normal (i.e. English). How would you like it if I forced you to read a Google-translated version of this notepad in your local language, hm?
Update (2012-01-16): as mentioned in the comments, an alternative, more radical solution is simply to delete the share/locale folder. It contains translation files, and if R can’t find them it will fall back to English.
Thanks for sharing information, I used following and it works
“C:\Program Files\R\R-2.11.1-x64\bin\Rgui.exe” LANGUAGE=en
On a side note, you might want to get a more up-to-date version…
Dear Namazu, I am just starting get accustomed with R and would like to change the laguage of menu, like other users sometime do.
I would like to apply Your scheme, but I do not understand what should I print within the console?
Could You please, detalize a little?
“C:\Program Files\R\R-2.11.1-x64\bin\Rgui.exe” LANGUAGE=en
@Alina: as explained in the first comment (on page 1): Right click the R shortcut, then select “Properties”. Select Shortcut tab if it is not the default selection. Type LANGUAGE=en after the texts in Target field. Apply and restart R (using the shortcut). You don’t need to use the console.
Cf picture: http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii8/patheticcockroach/Rshortcut.png
If the language you want is English, it might be simpler to just delete the share/locale folder.
Dear Alina,
Sorry to response you so late. As David showed in the picture, it is very easy to change the language.
You to to Start>Program>R and right click on that then choose properties.
No need to go to C:> Program>…xxx
Hi,
I tried “C:\Program Files\R\R-2.10.1\bin\Rgui.exe”LANGUAGE=en, but there is an error. The error msg says the name is not valid. Could anyone help me with it?
Thanks,
Rebecca
Hello,
This time, I tried “C:\Program Files\R\R-2.10.1\bin\Rgui.exe” LANGUAGE=en, the name has been changed. But the language is still not English. Can anyone help me with it?
Thanks,
Rebecca
Hi,
If you’re sure you won’t need the other languages, I’d say don’t bother with the shortcut and just delete the
share/localesubfolder. Or move it to some other place, if you want to be able to restore it.Thanks for the help David re language change! (am a novice too)
Thank you very much David! I’ve been all the afternoon long trying to find a way to change the language and the ‘help’ and manuals are not helpful at all. as U said, I’m working in Germany, but I cannot read German. this guys from R are crazy: how can they asume so easily that my ‘native language’ is German?
thank a lot again
Hi
I solved this with two steps
1. Made backup of whole LOCAL folder
2. In original LOCAL folder i removed all other local settings than the one i need. In my case it is en (i also kept en-GB) to be sure
I’m on a Korean computer and I don’t even really know the alphabet, so this localizing of the software, even after I pick English, is frustrating. How do you find the locale/share file. where is it? It’s not in the R file.
Hi,
It’s not
locale/share, it’sshare/locale. I don’t know Korean, maybe your software is reversing words:- first go to the R folder,
- then the
sharesubfolder,- then within this you’ll find the
localefolder.@david dernoncourt
thank you so so much, your suggested trick (share/locale) works perfectly !
Works good for me. I just deleted the ” share locale” file and it works fine.