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Kondho's avatar
Kondho
Copper Contributor
Oct 04, 2021

Excel date function in wrong language

Hey!

This is my first post on this website so please let me know if I posted this in a wrong place.

 

I have this problem and I've been looking for the solution everywhere but I can't find any.

 

I recently bought a new Macbook air 2020 model and I am using the latest Excel

I live in Finland so my Mac's regional settings are set to be Finnish. However, everything else in my computer (including excel) are in English language. The computer, the Excel view and the formulas in Excel are in English. Also when I go to the settings (system preferences --> language and region --> apps) Excel is set to be using English language.

 

I am trying to make myself a budgeting tool with some dates in it.

The problem is that the formulas are in English but for some reason the date abbreviations in the formula are in Finnish.

 

I have a starting date(D11), which is the date the tool is used for the first time and the following months are changed automatically based on the starting month.

 

Below are the formulas in each cell

D11= 4.10.2021

C13= =TEXT(D11;"kkk/vv")

D13= =TEXT(EDATE(C13;1);"kkk/vv")

 

As you can see above. The abbreviations for the dates are in Finnish:

(Month=Kuukausi=k and Year=Vuosi=v)

So the formula is otherwise in English but not the abbreviations, which is really stupid.

How do I change this to English so that it would be 

C13= =TEXT(D11;"mmm/yy")

D13= =TEXT(EDATE(C13;1);"mmm/yy")

 

This is so annoying since it doesn't make any sense to mix languages

Thank you in advance!

 

Kondho

excel
Excel on Mac
Formulas and Functions

5 Replies

  • MarcRieben's avatar
    MarcRieben
    Copper Contributor
    Dec 22, 2022

    Kondho: Have you tried adding the LanguageID into the format string?

     

    =TEXT(TODAY(),"[$-409]DDDD")

    Kudos to https://superuser.com/questions/477385/change-excel-day-name-to-other-languages

  • HansVogelaar's avatar
    HansVogelaar
    MVP
    Oct 04, 2021

    Kondho 

    Excel uses the computer's regional settings to determine what date formats look like. So you'd have to change your regional settings to USA or UK (this would also change your currency to $ or £, but you can change that back to €).

    • Kondho's avatar
      Kondho
      Copper Contributor
      Oct 04, 2021
      Hey and thanks for a quick response.

      Is that the only way to do this? I am afraid it would change other things on my computer based on the regional settings.
      • SergeiBaklan's avatar
        SergeiBaklan
        Diamond Contributor
        Oct 04, 2021

        Kondho 

        You may change format in regional settings. I'm in UK setting, English UK language, change here format on Finnish:

        and Excel shows custom format as

        You may do an opposite - apply US or UK format. By default here is

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