Locale En Us
Use when working with the English (United States) locale (`en-US`) — its endonym English (United States), Latin script, left-to-right (LTR) direction, or spoken-population data. Reference data and translation guidance (register, grammar, idiom, typography) for this specific locale; see [[locale]] for general i18n/l10n concepts (BCP 47, plural rules, RTL) that apply across all locales.
Reference data for the English (United States) locale — endonym English (United States), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).
Identifiers
- BCP 47 tag:
en-US - ISO 639-1:
en - ISO 639-3:
eng - Script: Latn (Latin)
- Region: US (United States)
- Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)
Speakers (approximate)
- L1 (native): 244,000,000
- L2 (additional): 55,000,000
- L1+L2 (total): 299,000,000
Base locale
This is a regional variant of Locale En 001 (English), the base/macro locale for this language.
Pluralization
CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, other (2 forms).
- one —
i = 1 and v = 0(e.g. 1) - other — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)
See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.
Translating into this locale
Apply Locale En 001 and use these United States conventions.
- Spelling: -ize, -or ("color", "center", "organize"), "license" for noun and verb, "program", "gray", "catalog", "check" (not "cheque").
- Punctuation: double quotation marks first with single marks inside; periods and commas go inside the closing quotation mark; serial comma is common in US style guides; periods after "Mr." and "Dr.".
- Dates and numbers: month/day/year ("October 17, 2026" or "10/17/2026"), 12-hour clock with AM/PM in consumer contexts, decimal point and comma thousands separator, dollar sign before the number, imperial units with metric where needed.
- Vocabulary: "cell phone", "truck", "elevator", "apartment", "vacation", "fall" for autumn, "gotten" as the past participle of "get".
- Tone: direct and friendly; contractions are normal in consumer text; plain language is the federal standard (plainlanguage.gov).
Common pitfalls
- Using UK spellings or UK vocabulary ("flat", "lift", "mobile") for a US audience.
- Writing day/month/year dates, which are ambiguous in the US ("03/04/2026").
- The general pitfalls in Locale En 001 also apply.
Learn more
- Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
- Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
- Microsoft Writing Style Guide (https://learn.microsoft.com/style-guide/welcome/)
- The Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook (US publishing conventions)
- https://www.plainlanguage.gov (federal plain-language guidelines)