diff --git a/autogen.sh b/autogen.sh
index 581479f..0903706 100755
--- a/autogen.sh
+++ b/autogen.sh
@@ -4,7 +4,8 @@ autoreconf
 
 echo bootstrapping translation files ...
 cd po
-XGETTEXT='xgettext -kP_:1,2' intltool-update --pot
+export XGETTEXT="xgettext -kP_:1,2"
+intltool-update --pot
 ## Translations are managed at https://www.transifex.com/telegram-purple-developers/telegram-purple/
 ## To update the .po files, download it from there, since intltool, msginit, and transifex produce slightly different files, and I'd like to avoid gigantic git diffs that only change indentation or similar things.
 #for lang in $(cat LINGUAS); do