I d like to know a way for my user whose locale presently shows:

~$ locale
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

to become

:~$ more .i18n
LANGUAGE=en_GB:en_GB.UTF-8:de
LC_ADDRESS=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_NAME=en_GB.UTF-8
XIM=scim
LC_NUMERIC=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_MEASUREMENT=en_GB.UTF-8
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.UTF-8
LC_TELEPHONE=en_GB.UTF-8
CONSOLE_NOT_LOCALIZED=yes
LC_MONETARY=en_GB.UTF-8
XIM_PROGRAM=scim
LC_PAPER=en_GB.UTF-8
XMODIFIERS="@im=scim"

I read 'just put it in a '.i18n' file in your homedir , but this is not doing anything for me.
I'm not using ~/.xsession definition files for each user at the moment, and I wish it werent necessary.. Any ideas?