The R console is in my native language, how can I set R to English?

I am using R on Windows 7. Apparently R somehow found evidence that I speak languages besides English, and stubbornly insists on giving output in the console in my own language. For a variety of reasons, this is undesirable, and I want R to be English.

What works

I am able to use LANGUAGE=en as a command line option for the R console desktop shortcut, but the language is still wrong in Rstudio, which launches the R executable directly and hence ignores the command line arguments in the shortcut.

What doesn't work

I have tried creating an .Renviron file under C:\Users\[MY_NAME]\Documents, which is the path returned for the working directory by getwd(), with LANGUAGE=en in it. R ignores this. My R_ENVIRON and R_ENVIRON_USER variables show up as "" so .Renviron should be the correct filename.

I have also tried creating .Renviron under R_HOME\etc (R_HOME points to C:/PROGRA~1/R/R-215~1.0) and R also ignores it.

I was somewhat successful with adding Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE="en") in R_HOME\etc - this made all output from the R console English, except for the initial copyright information.

The question

How can I make R default to English such that this is propagated to RStudio?

Solution 1:

On a fresh install, adding language = en to the Rconsole file (which exists by default under R_HOME\etc) will make R's language English in the R console as well as RStudio. This can be overridden by code in the working directory and RStudio's individual projects.

Solution 2:

First, go to the etc folder under R program files folder. Then locate Rconsole file. Find the line language =, change it to language = en if you want to run R in English.

Note: right click on the Rconsole file icon, select Property and grant yourself the permission to modify the file.

Solution 3:

it should be the Rconsole file, instead of Rprofile.site.

Solution 4:

The problem is not in R or in RStudio, the problem is in your Windows language configuration.

If you are using Windows, you have to set it like this (e.g. Windows 7):

1. Control Panel

2. Region and language.

   2.1. Go to the Tab "Administrative"

   • "Language for non-Unicode programs", then set it in the "Change system locale" button.

   2.2. If you want, you can set it also the Tab "Format" in Format.

Cheers, Darwin PC

Solution 5:

1. Go into R installation directory, i.e. C:\Program Files\R\

2. From there go into the subfolder etc/

3. Open with a text editor (i.e. Notepad) the file Rconsole

4. Look into the file for the line language =

5. Replace such line with language = en

6. Save and close the Rconsole file, then run Rgui again, and the interface will be in English

R version 3.1.3