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How to set English as my default input method?

I activated the Chinese input method because it's my mother tongue.

Although English is my default system language, Chinese input becomes my default input method when I log in each times, and this brings me some inconvenience since English is my working language.

How can I set English back as my default while keeping the Chinese one active?

Thanks a lot!

MBP 134, Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Oct 3, 2009 8:58 AM

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Posted on Oct 4, 2009 8:33 AM

Perhaps you can make US the default by running language chooser again by by opening Terminal and typing:

sudo "/System/Library/CoreServices/Language Chooser.app/Contents/MacOS/Language Chooser"
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Oct 4, 2009 7:44 AM in response to torenable

Thank you for your replies! Let me rephrase my words to make my question clearly.

I know how to change language priorities and English is my default language. But I don't know how to adjust the sequence of input methods in System Preference-> Language Text-> Input Sources.

When I activated both English and Chinese input methods, the Chinese is at the top of lists, and I can't drug their names to change the order. Each time I log in, Snow leopard will load the first input method on the list as the current method.

My question is how to arrange English to to the top in Input Sources list.

Thank you!
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Oct 3, 2009 9:34 AM in response to torenable

you may be confusing the terms and I don't quite understand what the problem is and what you want. First, there is the system language which is used in all system and applications menus. it's set in system preferences->language and text->language. put the language you want to be the top one on the list.

then there is the input method language which is the language used when you type anything anywhere. that's set in system preferences->language and text->input sources. select both English and Chinese there and check the box to show input menu in the menu bar. now you can switch the language you are typing in from that menu bar. none of them will be "default". when you log in, you'll get the input method that was used at the logout time.
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Oct 4, 2009 7:49 AM in response to torenable

torenable wrote:
Thank you for your replies! Let me rephrase my words to make my question clearly.

I know how to change language priorities and English is my default language. But I don't know how to adjust the sequence of input methods in System Preference-> Language Text-> Input Sources.

When I activated both English and Chinese input methods, the Chinese is at the top of lists, and I can't drug their names to change the order. Each time I log in, Snow leopard will load the first input method on the list as the current method.

My question is how to arrange English to to the top in Input Sources list.

you can't rearrange the order (its always alphabetical) but that should not matter. what you see is not normal. as i said, on every login it should load the input method that was used on the last logout. I use several input methods and that's how it has always worked for me in both leopard and snow leopard.
do you use filevault?
Thank you!
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Oct 4, 2009 8:02 AM in response to V.K.

Hi V.K,

Thank you for your reply!

"on every login it should load the input method that was used on the last logout".

I tried several times, this didn't work in my system... System will load my Chinese input method permanently when I log in.
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Oct 6, 2009 5:12 PM in response to torenable

Thank you guys!

To V.K
Your solution does resolve my problem. When I tried to log out and in twice, English worked as I wished.

To Tom Gewecke
Actually, I don't what is the Language Chooser, sigh. When installed the snow leopard, I set the location to U.S, and I didn't changed any setups related to time zone, location, language, etc.

Thank you again!
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How to set English as my default input method?

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