diff --git a/meta/recipes-support/vim/vim.inc b/meta/recipes-support/vim/vim.inc
index d8e88af22e..1464c4f4f4 100644
--- a/meta/recipes-support/vim/vim.inc
+++ b/meta/recipes-support/vim/vim.inc
@@ -41,22 +41,16 @@ do_configure () {
     cd src
     rm -f auto/*
     touch auto/config.mk
+    # git timestamps aren't reliable and we want to consistently regenerate these generated files
+    rm -f po/cs.cp1250.po po/ja.euc-jp.po po/ja.sjis.po po/ko.po po/pl.UTF-8.po po/pl.cp1250.po po/ru.cp1251.po po/sk.cp1250.po po/uk.cp1251.po po/zh_CN.po po/zh_CN.cp936.po po/zh_TW.po
     aclocal
     autoconf
     cd ..
     oe_runconf
     touch src/auto/configure
     touch src/auto/config.mk src/auto/config.h
-}
-
-do_compile() {
-    # We do not support fully / correctly the following locales.  Attempting
-    # to use these with msgfmt in order to update the ".desktop" files exposes
-    # this problem and leads to the compile failing.
-    for LOCALE in cs fr ko pl sk zh_CN zh_TW;do
-        echo -n > src/po/${LOCALE}.po
-    done
-    autotools_do_compile
+    # need a native tool, not a target one
+    ${BUILD_CC} src/po/sjiscorr.c -o src/po/sjiscorr
 }
 
 PACKAGECONFIG ??= "\