Change language for one application (Google Now voice recognition, root available)

Question

I normally run my phone in French. But unfortunately, Google Now will only support voice commands if I set the phone's language to US English.

I tried setting Google Now > Paramèters > Voix > Langue to anglias. This allowed me to perform Google searches using English. But I still couldn't use commands like "call…", "navigate to…" or "set an alarm…". These only seem to be available if I set the phone's overall language to English, which I don't want to do.

Is there any way to change the phone's language on a per-application basis? This would presumably require root access, which I have available. Basically, I'm looking for a root app which will chance the Unix locale for selected apps, or something like that. I want to make Google Now work without changing every other application to English. Thank you!

Answer 1

There is a way of forcing a certain app to be in different locale / language than your general phone settings!

1. you need to be rooted
2. install "xposed framework" from xposed.info
3. within this app install a module "app settings"
4. within this module search for "quicksearchbox" (it's the google search app)
5. change its locale to "english-us"
6. enjoy

Unfortunately xposed framework stopped working with android 5.0 Lollipop... so enjoy it until your phone is hit with the update :(

Answer 2

The locale of the app is based on the system wide locale, AFAIK, there is no way of setting each application to use a specific language regardless of how the system wide locale is set.

That is, the developers of such applications have taken for granted that, if the system wide locale is set, then the Android run-time will select the appropriate locale for the application, provided that the application has the necessary resource for that language built into the application.

If there is no locale for internationalization within the application, it will fall back on US English by default even if the system-wide setting is other than that.

I have not seen such an application where it prompts to select the language specifically within it at run-time and force it to use it regardless of system-wide setting.

Edit:

After a bit of google-fu, came across this site titled 'Google Now With Independent Locale: Google Now Tweaked For Use In Your Own Language [Root Only]'

So give that a shot and see if that would help you :)

Answer 3

I was just looking for the same thing to be able to run my phone in English, but my Navigation application in my native language (dutch). I found a program called localized apps program on XDA Developers: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1174443 It lets you create a shortcut for an app for a different language (it actually changes your phone language and returns it to normal when you close the program). Credits to xda user thiagolr for creating this program.