debian locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory

If you get similar messages to this when you use apt-get

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
LANGUAGE = (unset),
LC_ALL = (unset),
LC_CTYPE = "UTF-8",
LANG = "en_US"
are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory

and the advice to

dpkg-reconfigure locales

doesn’t work, then try this –

export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
dpkg-reconfigure locales

Short and sweet solution.

From:http://www.computersolutions.cn/blog/2011/11/debian-locales-error-quick-fix/