Changing the current language
From Audacity Wiki
Audacity can display in many non-English languages. Language is chosen on first run, which then saves the choice in the Audacity settings file. Choice of language persists until changed (as do all settings), even after reinstalling Audacity.
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[edit] Change language in the program
To change the language in the program, click Preferences: Interface tab choose your language in the "Language" dropdown box, click OK, then (except in Audacity 1.3.5 or later), exit and restart. Preferences are under the Edit menu, or under the Audacity menu on a Mac.
If you cannot see any other languages besides English in the dropdown, make sure the "Languages" folder is in the same folder as the Audacity program itself. On Windows. the Audacity program (audacity.exe) is normally at C:\Program Files\Audacity. On OS X, the Audacity program (Audacity.app) is normally at /Applications/audacity.
If you cannot read the menus because the text is in a foreign language or has ??? characters, try this:
- Click on the second menu from the left in the Audacity menus top left of the screen (note: first menu from the left on Mac), then on the bottom item of that menu. This opens the Preferences.
- Click on the sixth tab from the left (you may have to click on the pointing arrows top right of the Preferences window to reveal this tab). In this tab you will see a dropdown box containing a list of the language choices. Select the language you want and press "ENTER" on your keyboard. Note: in a 1.3.x version of Audacity, the tabs of the Preferences are laid out in a panel on the left, so click on the 6th tab from the top in that left-hand panel (fourth tab from the top in Audacity 1.3.5 to 1.3.7, fifth tab from the top in 1.3.8 or later).
- Exit Audacity by clicking on the first tab on the left in the Audacity menus then on the bottom item of that menu, then re-launch it (this step is not needed in Audacity 1.3.5 or later).
[edit] Change language in the system settings
[edit] Audacity 1.2 (stable)
To change language in the system settings, first close Audacity, then locate the settings file as follows:
- Windows: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Audacity\ in the Windows Registry
- OS X: /SystemDrive/Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/audacity Preferences/audacity
- Linux: the file ~/.audacity
In the settings there is a preference value under "Locale" called "Language". Set this value to that of your preferred language, then Audacity will run in that language. For example, if you set this value to "en" (without quotes) the language will be English, "de" will set the language to German and so on.
Alternatively, either delete the "Locale" line in the "audacity" file or the "Locale" Registry key at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Audacity\Audacity\Locale
You will then be asked to choose the language again the next time you run Audacity.
 | Modifying the Windows Registry can be dangerous! Before modifying the Registry, always back it up or set a System Restore point (on XP or later). To access System Restore, click Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. |
Windows users wanting to revert to English language without editing the Registry directly can instead go here, scroll to the bottom of the page and right-click over "Audacity reset Preferences .reg file for Windows". Save this .reg file to your drive, then double-click it and click "yes" when asked if you want to add the information to the Registry. Note this will reset most of your Audacity Preferences to safe default values, in addition to setting the language to English.
[edit] Audacity 1.3 (Beta)
For versions 1.3.1 onwards, Audacity Preferences are stored in a configuration file called audacity.cfg in the Audacity settings folder. The configuration file can be edited with any text editor. The Audacity settings folder is located at:
- Windows (except Vista, 7): Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Audacity
- Windows Vista, 7: Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Audacity
- OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/audacity
- Linux: ~/.audacity-data
To change language, exit Audacity and either change the line under [Locale] to your preferred language, for example "Language=en" (without quotes) to choose English, "Language=de" to choose German, or delete the [Locale] line. Then restart Audacity. If you deleted the [Locale] line you will be asked when launching Audacity to choose your language again.
A quicker alternative if you have (or ever had) Audacity 1.2.6 running in your preferred language is to delete audacity.cfg. Audacity 1.3 or later will then take its language and other 1.2 settings from the stored 1.2 values. Preference settings in 1.3 which have no equivalent in 1.2 will return to default.
[edit] Supported non-English languages
- af Afrikaans
- ar Arabic
- bg Bulgarian
- bn Bengali
bs Bosnian- ca Catalan
ca@valencia Valencian- cs Czech
- cy Cymraeg
- da Dansk
- de German
- el Greek
- es Español
- eu Basque
- fa Farsi (Persian) ¶
- fi Finnish
- fr French
- ga Gaelainn
- gl Galego
- he Hebrew ¶
- hi Hindi ¶
- hu Hungarian
- id Indonesian ¶
- it Italian
- ja Japanese
- ka Georgian ¶
- km Khmer ¶
- ko Korean ¶
- lt Lithuanian
- mk Macedonian
- my Burmese ¶
- nb Norwegian (Bokmal)
- nl Dutch
- oc Occitan ¶
- pl Polish
- pt Portuguese ¶
- pt_br Portuguese (Brazilian)
- ro Romanian ¶
- ru Russian
- sk Slovak
- sl Slovenian
- sv Swedish
- tg Tajik ¶
- tr Turkish
- uk Ukrainian
- vi Vietnamese ¶
- zh Chinese (Simplified)
- zh_tw Chinese (Taiwan)
- ¶ Audacity Beta only
- Languages
struck outhave written translations but won't - appear in Audacity until wxWidgets supports them
