why are website language switchers in the current language?
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In an international context, not everybody speaks English. A Japanese customer wants to switch to French. Which language should the language picker be in?
Alternative is to put the flag of each language next to the name in the picker. That way, whoever doesn't read the current language can at least pick by icon.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The annoying thing is, you can't put an image in the default select from browsers.
So you have two choices :- Make a custom select -> it's complicated and will break on some machines.
- Use emoji flags -> windows do not have an image pack for flag emoji, and chrome didn't bother implementing their own (Firefox did), so it displays the initials instead.
So whatever you do will not be universally supported, thank you Microsoft.
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In an international context, not everybody speaks English. A Japanese customer wants to switch to French. Which language should the language picker be in?
Alternative is to put the flag of each language next to the name in the picker. That way, whoever doesn't read the current language can at least pick by icon.
Have the language in the current language setting and the target language native tongue so you would get
フランス語 / French
"Alphabetic" sorting would be difficult, so it wouldn't be perfect, but at least a lot more understandable. Still, just having a search option would fix that easily. -
Out of curiosity, would you put Deutsch before or after 日本語?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Before, since D and G are both before N ("nihongo") and J ("japanese")
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Yeah okay but imagine clicking the option with an Israeli flag and suddenly the website is in Arabic. That's too funny to pass up.
Probably not so funny other way around hah
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In an international context, not everybody speaks English. A Japanese customer wants to switch to French. Which language should the language picker be in?
Alternative is to put the flag of each language next to the name in the picker. That way, whoever doesn't read the current language can at least pick by icon.
The label for the language picker is an issue, but the choices themselves? In the target language. You want French? You pick "Français". You want Japanese? You pick "日本語". You want english? You pick "English".
Supposedly, if you'd rather have a website in a given language, you must have some level of understanding of that language, and picking its name should not be a challenge in any case. If you somehow change a site/app to a language you don't know, as long as you can identify the language picker, you'll be able to change to something you understand.
It does leave out the case of a user wanting to change to a language they do not understand, but I do not care for those.
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It would be way more user-friendly to use the language in the HTTP headers. As a web developer the fact that websites are too stupid to do this really grinds my gears. This is just as bad as assuming the language/region from the geolocation of the IP address.
C’mon guys…
I'm pretty sure nobody's doing that based on geoip. Client-side, the browser exposes the user's languages choices. And server side, the HTTP header can help. But geoip is totally unreliable, even a broken salesman would not sell that as a feature.
Well ok they would sell it but get a very heavy glance from the dev team.
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Yeeeah, I don't know, it's an interesting UX question. For language selection, sure. For country? There are plenty of reasons why you may need to select a country name and not be clear on the native spelling of its name. Plus how do you end up in a country selector list in a language you don't understand?
I'll say that flagging the language selector for international users is even harder than the list itself. If you don't have an icon for it in particular. You can make the name cycle, but depending on where it's at it can be distracting or impractical. Accidentally changing the language to Hungarian (which may as well be an alien language, for how unrecognizeable its roots are if you don't speak it) was one of the few times I ended up having to delete a config file just to be able to use a piece of software again because I just could not find the lanuage selector after that.
Plus how do you end up in a country selector list in a language you don't understand?
By clicking random buttons hoping to find the one that changes the language to one you can understand?
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The annoying thing is, you can't put an image in the default select from browsers.
So you have two choices :- Make a custom select -> it's complicated and will break on some machines.
- Use emoji flags -> windows do not have an image pack for flag emoji, and chrome didn't bother implementing their own (Firefox did), so it displays the initials instead.
So whatever you do will not be universally supported, thank you Microsoft.
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If people really insist then at least have a flag emoji
No, flags for languages are a bad thing.
- If you put a Swiss flag, what language would it be? (They speak 4 languages in Switzerland)
- What flag would you use for English? The UK? The US?
More details here: https://localizejs.com/articles/why-using-flag-icons-can-confuse-your-users
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This always annoys me. I land on a site that's in a language I don't understand (say, Dutch), and I want to switch to something else. I open the language selector and... it's all in Dutch too. So instead of Germany/Deutchland, Romania/România, Great Britain, etc, I get Duitsland and Roemenië and Groot-Brittannië...
How does that make any sense? If I don't speak the language, how am I supposed to know what Roemenië even is? In some situations, it could be easier to figure it out, but in some, not so much. "German" in Polish is "Niemiecki"...
Wouldn't it be way more user-friendly to show the names in their native language, like Deutsch, Română, English, Polski, etc?
Is there a reason this is still a thing, or is it just bad UX that nobody bothers to fix?
Do I speak Ierland-ish? Mabey not, could be weird, but I got the one that must be Italian, and then I can pick English from there. Except I glossed over Groot-Brit.... because Groot couldn't be what I was looking for.
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Flags don't represent languages and therefore shouldn't be used to represent languages.
Typically they're used for the counties where the language originated.
UK for English
France for French
Japan for Japanese
Spain for Spanish
Russia for Russian
Portugal for Portuguese -
Flags don't make sense.
Otherwise this is completely valid:( ) German
( ) Italian
( ) JapaneseTell me... Where did, roughly speaking, German originate? Germany, perhaps?
Does Germany have a flag?
Not sure why this is some sort of hidden secret code.
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Tell me... Where did, roughly speaking, German originate? Germany, perhaps?
Does Germany have a flag?
Not sure why this is some sort of hidden secret code.
There are some German dialects that only survive (barely) in Brazil.
And the German language is much older than Germany.
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Tell me... Where did, roughly speaking, German originate? Germany, perhaps?
Does Germany have a flag?
Not sure why this is some sort of hidden secret code.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]German language as we know it now, predates Germany by at least 500 years, originated, roughly speaking, in the area that is now Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and in small part Belgium and Netherlands.
It only simple and easy if you don't know about it and don't care. But people who use the language, surprisingly, do care. -
Typically they're used for the counties where the language originated.
UK for English
France for French
Japan for Japanese
Spain for Spanish
Russia for Russian
Portugal for PortugueseNo, typically they aren't, and if they do it's a bad idea. Only 4% of L1 Portuguese speakers live in Portugal. There is 4 languages in Switzerland. German originated in at least 3 countries. USisans will throw a hissy fit if they will have to click on anything but their favourite star spangled banner for their language.
It's a mess. -
The label for the language picker is an issue, but the choices themselves? In the target language. You want French? You pick "Français". You want Japanese? You pick "日本語". You want english? You pick "English".
Supposedly, if you'd rather have a website in a given language, you must have some level of understanding of that language, and picking its name should not be a challenge in any case. If you somehow change a site/app to a language you don't know, as long as you can identify the language picker, you'll be able to change to something you understand.
It does leave out the case of a user wanting to change to a language they do not understand, but I do not care for those.
Why not do both tho?
Like "日本語 (Japanese)”
So that if I fuck up my languages for some reason, I can turn back -
A split combo of the two is pretty common.
English is an official language in 53 countries, and primary language in 29. You can attempt to split it, but that wouldn't be very pleasant picture.
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Why not do both tho?
Like "日本語 (Japanese)”
So that if I fuck up my languages for some reason, I can turn backWe're saying, don't translate the language's names at all, use what the speakers call their own language.
English is always "English" regardless of UI language. French is always "Francais", Then you can switch to any language you can read
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And if they're all displayed in their own language?
byte order, nobody is happy but at least it's sort of equitable
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What flag is for English? What flag is for Portuguese? What about Austria, do they got a language? What do we put under Chinese flag, Mandarin? Where do Cantonese go? Oh, what about Belarusian? There are at least three options, and two could get you in jail, choose carefully.
I'm just telling you what I've seen used. Typically it's a lot of European flags for languages that originate in Europe. So UK for English, German for German, French for French, Spain for Spanish. Belarusian would be the flag of...Belarus? Not sure why that's a challenge.
To your question about China - What should be used for Swahili? What should be used for Yarouba or Hausa or Shona or Chewa? Africa is the problem, and so the typical method for doing this is very Euro-centric.
