diff --git a/frontend/gettext.lua b/frontend/gettext.lua
index 845ae98a2..69bc32cc1 100644
--- a/frontend/gettext.lua
+++ b/frontend/gettext.lua
@@ -36,14 +36,13 @@ end
 -- we only implement a sane subset for now
 
 function GetText_mt.__index.changeLang(new_lang)
-    -- can be various things such as `en_US` or `en_US:en`
-    if new_lang:match("^en_US") == "en_US" then return end
-
     GetText.translation = {}
     GetText.current_lang = "C"
 
-    -- the "C" locale disables localization alltogether
-    if new_lang == "C" or new_lang == nil then return end
+    -- the "C" locale disables localization altogether
+    -- can be various things such as `en_US` or `en_US:en`
+    if new_lang == "C" or new_lang == nil or new_lang == ""
+       or new_lang:match("^en_US") == "en_US" then return end
 
     -- strip encoding suffix in locale like "zh_CN.utf8"
     new_lang = new_lang:sub(1, new_lang:find(".%."))
@@ -53,7 +52,7 @@ function GetText_mt.__index.changeLang(new_lang)
 
     if not po then
         logger.err("cannot open translation file:", file)
-        return
+        return false
     end
 
     local data = {}
diff --git a/kodev b/kodev
index e9c7dc8be..e5a8d668f 100755
--- a/kodev
+++ b/kodev
@@ -561,7 +561,7 @@ OPTIONS:
         busted --lua="./luajit" "${opts}" \
             --no-auto-insulate \
             --lazy \
-            -o "./spec/$1/unit/verbose_print" \
+            --output=gtest \
             --exclude-tags=notest "${test_path}"
     } && popd || exit
 }
diff --git a/spec/unit/gettext_spec.lua b/spec/unit/gettext_spec.lua
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..10e362f49
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/unit/gettext_spec.lua
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+describe("GetText module", function()
+    local GetText
+    setup(function()
+        require("commonrequire")
+        GetText = require("gettext")
+    end)
+    describe("changeLang", function()
+        it("should return nil when passing newlang = C", function()
+            assert.is_nil(GetText.changeLang("C"))
+        end)
+        it("should return nil when passing empty string or nil value", function()
+            assert.is_nil(GetText.changeLang(nil))
+            assert.is_nil(GetText.changeLang(""))
+        end)
+        it("should return nil when passing values that start with en_US", function()
+            assert.is_nil(GetText.changeLang("en_US"))
+            assert.is_nil(GetText.changeLang("en_US:en"))
+            assert.is_nil(GetText.changeLang("en_US.utf8"))
+        end)
+        it("should return false when it can't find a po file", function()
+            assert.is_false(GetText.changeLang("nonsense"))
+            assert.is_false(GetText.changeLang("more_NONSENSE"))
+        end)
+    end)
+end)