change (apt-) language *temporarily*

[michaa7]

I think I saw it here in the forum several times that there is a way to force apt to *talk* en instead of the language configured through the locale environment (here "de").

How can I do this?

[joogi]

You can use the LANGUAGE variable in your shell.

eg.

german: LANGUAGE="de_de.UTF-8" apt-get help
english: LANGUAGE="en_us.UTF-8" apt-get help

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joogi@siductionbox:~# LANGUAGE="de_de.UTF-8" apt-get help
apt 0.9.8 für amd64, kompiliert am May  8 2013 18:45:41
Aufruf: apt-get [Optionen] befehl
       apt-get [Optionen] install|remove paket1 [paket2 ...]
       apt-get [Optionen] source paket1 [paket2 ...]

apt-get ist ein einfaches Befehlszeilenwerkzeug zum Herunterladen
und Installieren von Paketen. Die am häufigsten benutzten Befehle
sind update und install.

Befehle:
 update          – neue Paketinformationen holen
 upgrade         – Upgrade (Paketaktualisierung) durchführen
 install         – neue Pakete installieren (paket ist libc6, nicht libc6.deb)
 remove          – Pakete entfernen
..


If you want to change the time format, too: Checkout the LC_ variables

[brummer]

or if you would change it for a terminal session, you can use

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export LANG=en_GB.utf8
for English, for example, you get a list with your installed languages with

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locale-a

[michaa7]

Thanks to both of you!

[towo]

or
LANG=C apt-get foo bar
will talk in en.

[michaa7]

Thanks towo, that's the one I remember and couldn't recall.