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R doesn't plot automatically axis in English (for example Months are in French). I use (if the information is usefull...):

  • windows (and I have already changed "language = en" in .../Programs/R/etc/Rconsole to make R speaking English)
  • RStudio
  • ggplot2

I know that I am not the only one with this issue but I never found a solution.

> sessionInfo()
R version 2.15.2 (2012-10-26)

[1] LC_COLLATE=French_France.1252  LC_CTYPE=French_France.1252 LC_MONETARY=French_France.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=French_France.1252
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Include the output of sessionInfo(). It's likely that you still haven't set your locale correctly. –  joran Mar 15 '13 at 17:20
OK, I see a lot of Frenchy stuff in that locale... Would you know how to modify this? Thanks –  user2165907 Mar 15 '13 at 17:30
Try the suggestions found in ?locales first and see how that works. (But read carefully, setting locales is something people often get tangled up on.) I'm in the US and most of my locales are set to en_US.UTF-8. –  joran Mar 15 '13 at 17:32
Did you say you had already tried what is outlined here? stackoverflow.com/questions/13575180/… –  Chase Mar 15 '13 at 17:34
Yeah, what @Chase said. That was going to be my next suggestion. –  joran Mar 15 '13 at 17:35
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2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

To change language of the environment use the following command:


To change locale to English:

Sys.setlocale("LC_ALL", "English")
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The locale you see in sessionInfo() is system wide specific, go to windows regional options and change from french to english then restart R and you should see English instead of french...but this is only if you want do it quick and dirty, it will then be applied system wide. Else ?locale should explain and to do it more surgically

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