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Version 0.6 introduced automatic client localizations. Personally, I hate using programs in Hebrew, and prefer English, but the client didn't ask for my preferences on this matter and just switched to Hebrew.

How can I change the interface language back to English?

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  • 1
    Sorry for that.
    – Meni Rosenfeld
    Apr 3, 2012 at 14:25
  • PS localizations existed since at least the introduction of QT as standard in 0.5, but the Hebrew translation didn't yet exist at the time.
    – Meni Rosenfeld
    Apr 3, 2012 at 14:26

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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Close the Bitcoin client and add this line:

lang=en

On a line by itself to the end of the file:

C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\bitcoin.conf

(Replace "YourUserName" with your windows user name.)

Now restart the Bitcoin client. Done!

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4

EDIT: The correct solution was provided by Matt Corallo but was somewhy deleted. Use the command line argument -lang=en_US.

As far as I know, QT chooses which language to use based on the OS settings. So I think the first thing to try is to configure your OS not to use a Hebrew interface.

If that fails, you should try to figure out how to disable localization in QT circles, since bitcoin-qt's localization inherits completely from QT.

If all else fails, you can recompile without the language in question.

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4
  • My OS is not Hebrew, obviously. We need a setting for this.
    – ripper234
    Apr 4, 2012 at 6:27
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    @ripper234: Just as clearly, something in your OS is configured for Hebrew/Israel, otherwise bitcoin-qt would not use Hebrew. I don't know if this can be changed without side effects, but the research in Chris Moore's answer could be useful. Anyway, you can force a particular language with bitcoin-qt's -lang parameter.
    – Meni Rosenfeld
    Apr 4, 2012 at 10:07
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    I did some more testing. On Windows, the default language is controlled by the dates format. I've been using US format so far (didn't bother to change it), but when I switch to Israel bitcoin-qt defaults to Hebrew. This is consistent with Chris's observations on Linux. I reverted to US, but while I'm at it, I switched just the day/month order to the Israel standard.
    – Meni Rosenfeld
    Apr 4, 2012 at 12:22
  • I have no idea why Matt Corallo's answer was deleted. I have undeleted it so that people may give credit to what seems to be the correct answer.
    – D.H.
    Apr 8, 2012 at 17:46
2

Start bitcoin with the -lang option ie bitcoin-qt -lang=en_US

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I experimented a little in Linux to see what environment variables were affecting the choice of language:

$ env | grep -e LANG -e LC_ALL
LC_ALL=en_CA.UTF-8
LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
$ LANG=de_DE ./bitcoin-qt --help 2>&1 | tail -1
  -?                 This help message
$ unset LC_ALL
$ LANG=de_DE ./bitcoin-qt --help 2>&1 | tail -1
  -?                 Dieser Hilfetext
$ LC_ALL=C LANG=de_DE ./bitcoin-qt --help 2>&1 | tail -1
  -?                 This help message
$ LANG=de_DE.UTF8 ./bitcoin-qt --help 2>&1 | tail -1
  -?                 Dieser Hilfetext
$ LANG=en_US.UTF8 ./bitcoin-qt --help 2>&1 | tail -1
  -?                 This help message

So it seems that making sure LC_ALL isn't set, and having an environment variable LANG=en_US.UTF8 will cause it to use English.

Alternatively, set LC_ALL=en_US.UTF8, but then everything will be USA-ish - you'll see American date formats, dots instead of commas for decimal points, etc.

The last time I used Windows you could set environment variables by going to the Control Panel, opening the System control, going to the Advanced tab, and clicking on Environment Variables. I don't know if that's changed in recent years though.

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