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Invoking GNOME applications with LANUAGE=C application in a terminal seems to work fine (I've not yet experienced difficulties), I assume it is a specified (GNOME) behavior. What would be the equivalent way to controll language of KDE applications with a shell variable (not necessarily invoked in a KDE desktop, e.g. in Unity)?

Kalle Richter
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2 Answers2

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The command

LANGUAGE=C application

is wrong. It may seem to 'work', but it's a coincidence.

LANGUAGE=X application

'works' too in that sense.

The LANGUAGE variable expects a colon separated list of language codes. Since neither C nor X is a valid language code, GNU compatible applications fall back to the original language, i.e. English.

LANGUAGE=en application

would be correct if LANGUAGE in the session environment is set to some other language, and you want to start a particular application in English.

To start non-GNU compatible applications in English you can use

LANG=en_US.UTF-8 application
Gunnar Hjalmarsson
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  • LANG=en_US.UTF-8 systemsettings doesn't work for me. – int_ua May 30 '14 at 06:48
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    @int_ua: Not for me either (on Ubuntu). LANGUAGE=en_US systemsettings changes some strings, but not all. Don't know if this is Kubuntu specific or systemsettings specific (or both). – Gunnar Hjalmarsson May 30 '14 at 13:16
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KDE 4:

KDE_LANG=de myapp

KDE Frameworks 5:

LANGUAGE=de myapp

See http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Localization/Building_KDE%27s_l10n_Module Step 2: Test An Application

Eric Carvalho
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Burkhard Lück
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  • Thanks, KDE_LANG=en_US worked for dolphin, but it translated only panel buttons in systemsettings – int_ua May 30 '14 at 19:37
  • KDE_LANG=a_locale works in the same way for dolphin/systemsettings or any kde4 application: translation of strings in gettext catalogs are taken from the catalogs in a_locale if installed, translation of strings in desktop file are taken from the locale defined in systemsettings – Burkhard Lück Jun 01 '14 at 10:22