Terminal: Choose language in settings.json

[Geobert]

Description of the new feature/enhancement

Localization feature is great, well done! :D

But I'd like to keep english for all my dev tools even if my language is not English in Windows input.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

I don't know if it's possible, couldn't find a configuration key for it, but a settings.json key called "language" with a value like "en-EN" to set the wanted language would be nice.

[DHowett-MSFT]

Thanks for the request! Marked this one into the backlog. It turns out there's an API to override the preferred languages on an app-by-app basis, but it suggests that we should absolutely not call it every time we launch. How strange.

[huoyaoyuan]

I'd rather like there to be an entry in Windows Settings to select preferred language per-app.

[Geobert]

Or just follow Windows display language instead of input language? My windows is displaying en-GB and input is fr-FR. Terminal is displaying French.

[DHowett-MSFT]

@Geobert as far as I can tell, Termimal uses the order of your “preferred language” list in the language settings. It’s the same list that other applications use to determine their _disply_ languages. Can you share a screenshot of that settings page?

[Geobert]

@DHowett-MSFT : thanks for your answer! French is indeed the first in the list, but my OS still display English

[DHowett-MSFT]

Ah! Thanks for the info.

Unfortunately, this is by design -- the settings application has a separate section for the _operating system_ display language and the preferred language list.

[Geobert]

OH just discovered that I can put English first and still have french as default input x)

Thank you!

[greggman]

I'm confused. AFAIK Windows Terminal does not respect the language setting in the OS. Is that intentional? I have Japanese input enabled but my OS is set to English. 100% of my apps show an English UI and so does windows. Well, it was 100%. Only Windows Terminal is showing a Japanese UI in the drop down menu.

Is that not a bug, doing something different than all other windows software?

Of course an option to override it is fine but it seems like the default should match other software

[DHowett-MSFT]

@greggman Terminal is following your system’s “preferred language order.” If your preferred language order says you prefer Japanese, Terminal will be in Japanese.

More info here: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/5497#issuecomment-622998246

[DHowett-MSFT]

(This _is_ the language setting in the OS. You can drag and drop the entries to change the order. All universal and modern store deployed apps follow this order.)

[greggman]

Weird. Strange. I use no other apps that seem to respect that setting but I guess I just don't use any apps that do. The OS itself is in English. If I wanted everything in Japanese I'd set the OS to Japanese. Oh well, windows is full of language bugs and trying to work around them all is exhausting

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[DHowett-MSFT]

I do find it strange that there’s the “OS Language”, which dictates ... well, the OS but also _literally all other applications_, and the preferred language list that’s respected by modern packaged applications.

It gets even weirder if you use unpackaged Terminal: suddenly it _doesn’t_ use the preferred language list. I haven’t been able to determine what language it chooses- perhaps the “OS Language?”

Madness.

[Ludorg]

I'm confused. AFAIK Windows Terminal does not respect the language setting in the OS. Is that intentional? I have Japanese input enabled but my OS is set to English. 100% of my apps show an English UI and so does windows. Well, it was 100%. Only Windows Terminal is showing a Japanese UI in the drop down menu.

I had the same issue with French input. All the OS is configured in English and other apps are in english also (even the ones from Microsoft Store). Only Windows Terminal was (note the past, as I found a workaround) in French. To fix this, I opened Language Settings panel. A message in yellow showed me a warning about "group related languages".

By clicking the button and relaunching Windows Terminal, all was correct with menu in English.

[harrym124]

The fix described in the above comment worked for me. Maybe the developers should study why it works, rather than closing all related issues.

My issue above for the same problem was closed by the developer DHowett with the following comment, which shows a basic misunderstanding of the difference in Windows between language and region ids.

In short: terminal is following the windows operating system’s “preferred language list”. This is an ordered list of what languages you want Modern applications to use. This is also what the store, calculator, photos, etc. use. This is the display language for apps.

In my case, the entire Windows uses English, which is both the display language and the keyboard language. I have set the Formats option in "Control Panel -> Region -> Formats" to French in order to use the Euro symbol rather than the dollar.

Windows Terminal just uses the wrong system id. As a developer I once did the same mistake, but then I studied the question and corrected the mistake.

[fishie]

Ah, the comments above explain why my Windows Terminal is in Japanese. I agree with the comments above that Windows is full of language bugs, or at least quirks. This is my "Preferred languages" list:

As the text in the picture explains: "Apps and websites will appear in the first language in the list that they support", means that my Windows Terminal is in Japanese. Although my Windows is in English.

So basically I could add English as a preferred language with Swedish locale so everything is in English and remove Swedish as a preferred language or add English but keep Swedish if I wanted my apps to be in Swedish but then I would end up with a redundant keyboard option that I would never use. I'll go for everything in English. It is unfortunate that I can't seem to have a Swedish Windows with Swedish as my preferred language while having apps that don't support Swedish fall back to English without a redundant keyboard option.

Sorry for the off-topic discussion. This is Windows issue, not a Windows Terminal issue. But this thread helped me a lot to understand what is going on with my Windows Terminal language.

[patrikhuber]

I am having the same bug, see my description and screenshots in #6931.

A language setting in Windows Terminal would be nice - but primarily there is a bug at work here that should be fixed. Windows Terminal should respect the Windows System language, and it does not. See my screenshots in #6931.

@Ludorg's "fix" of pressing "Group related languages" sort-of "fixed" the problem half-way for me: The menu is English now but it still says "Eingabeaufforderung" (German).

Also I don't get why "Group related languages" "fixed" it because both before, my Windows display language was English:

As well as afterwards...:

This doesn't seem Windows Terminal specific though. I noticed now my Calculator is English too, whereas before it (wrongly) was German suddenly, after some of the previous Windows Updates. So it looks like this is a broader Windows Store issue - Windows Store at its finest - not adhering to the Windows display language. The whole OS adheres to that, Windows Store apps do not.

[DHowett]

The key here is this:

Unfortunately, it's worded poorly given that it's directly under the part that says this...

Now, what's probably happened is that Terminal ships with its packaged language set to en-US, not en-SV... but your preferred language order looks like this to all modern applications:

• en-SV
• de-SV
• en-UK

since de* is the first one of those that actually _exists_ in the terminal package, it's the one that was getting selected. Curious why it didn't fall through to en-UK, though.

As for why your menu still says Command Prompt in German, that's because your initial install chose that lanugage and it's embedded in your settings file. Delete the name from settings.json and it'll revert to English.

[hSATAC]

+1 to this. Especially with the commandPalette feature is released, it's important for devs to stick with Eng so we can speed up.

[kard02]

I want to add onto this issue. I have 2 languages installed: Polish and German. German is not a language I am comfortable with, but I needed German keyboard layout for something. As of today, Polish is not a supported language, so Windows Terminal defaulted to German. This is yet another reason to have language selection (I am forced to install English language for now).

[hangyu-feng]

Definitely useful to select a language for windows terminal! command palette is not that usable without English

[el-schneider]

I also need the command palette to be in english but my system is not