Apparently this is a common problem with a simple solution if you know what your doing from the start.I found a few post and managed to correctly list my locales (locale -a). And now I am stuck totally.............I type in grep $HOME and nothing happened then I typed in /etc ja_JP.itf8 and then I type edit/etc/locale.gen .........so I tried to go back and retyped locale -a.................Now I am sitiing here staring at this computer trying to figure out what to do. I managed to install Ubuntu and was trying to switch to Xubuntu because I am using an older laptop.Please help I will be up for hours tonight because I am not even sure if I can shut this off with this window open.If you direct me to an older post please make sure it is line by line step bystep instructions....I am truly a monkey see monkey do but know nothing about computer languages I am trying to save an old laptop from the recycle bin.......Frustrated.....Thank You So much
When I say line by line I mean how do I restart the locale -a command (if necessary) correct the problem with type: and then exactly what I need to type. once again thank you

To check if your system supports the locale you're looking for, let's say japanese, you enter this command:
locale -a | grep ja_JP.utf8

If it's not supported, enter this command to generate it:
sudo locale-gen ja_JP.utf8 (or any other locale you want)

Once you know it is supported and you want to change your system locale,

sudo update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8
(for us english system) OR...

update-locale LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=POSIX
(japanese system, with english system messages)

Alternatively you could manually edit /etc/default/locale. It's the same thing.

Reboot