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why are website language switchers in the current language? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by beerclue@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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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?

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[-] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 105 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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…

[-] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 week ago

the last one piss me off so much, especially when they redirect you and you don't have anyway to load the English version...

[-] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 20 points 1 week ago

It’s like all the developers in the field got handed access to some IP dataset and they’re just looking for reasons to use it. Screw the users I guess?

[-] EisFrei@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

The customer gets what the customer wants.

I've tried countless times to convince them to just use the browser locale, but most of them somehow keep insisting on using geolocation...

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[-] scoutfdt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago

My Pixel started giving me distances in miles once because I had the system language to English. I needed to change it to English (German) to show me meters. I don't know if they reverted that but at this point I am too afraid to change it.

[-] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 week ago

That's just how locales work. When you set the language, you also get the associated date/time representation, unit system, etc

[-] yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 week ago

But you should be able to set the locale separately from language. You can easily do that on any Unix/Linux system. In your locale.conf, set LANG to your language and all other LC_* variables to your preferred locale.

Systems that do not allow this are badly designed. For a lot of multilingual people, locale and preferred language are independent.

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[-] Noobnarski@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I have my Google Account set to English, but YouTube still autotranslates all video titles of newer videos to German for some reason...

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[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

Yes, but it doesn't solve the problem. Even when a website does that, they might still have a switcher to let you override.

[-] thatsnothowyoudoit@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago

We do both.

A) use the language set by the user in their os/browser B) switcher shows the language name in that language

Done, easy, etc. IMO the hard part are great translations and designs that work in languages where every word is a novel. And yet, here we are.

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[-] x00z@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Accept Language headers are sadly an easy browser fingerprint. I therefor have it set to English even though that's not my native language.

There's also the case where you might have misclicked when changing your language, so your argument isn't really a complete solution. It just helps but doesn't fix the main problem.

[-] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If you set your language on a website what’s the difference between them using the header versus using the selected language for fingerprinting?

I understand what you’re saying but even I, a person who splits all their traffic between three different VPN tunnels and goes way too far with DNS blocking don’t really care about fingerprinting based on language.

If the person really cares so much they can set the browser language back to English then manually change it on each website they visit. We shouldn’t punish everyone on such a silly privacy preference.

Edit: Yeah of course just downvote me, don’t bother to engage in any kind of dialog.

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[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 96 points 1 week ago

I've seen language switchers with translated language names that were sorted by the English name. So "Deutsch" was sorted under G.

[-] mle86@feddit.org 44 points 1 week ago

Yeah that happened on Microsofts knowledgebase sites for years...

So annoying. But cant blame such a small company for not fixing that, they probably couldn't afford to fix it /s

[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago

It's not my fault if the Scrum Master can't provide a proper scope in the ticket. They said change the names, not the sorting.

[-] Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 week ago

The scrum master is not a product owner and shouldn't be providing scope or anything for that matter in tickets. No wonder agile is hated and dying, it's been corrupted beyond recognition by people who have no reading comprehension.

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[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 45 points 1 week ago

because most web developers are morons :/

[-] tempest@lemmy.ca 40 points 1 week ago

It's more like "localization is hard and you have a week to add support for it"

[-] skisnow@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 week ago

Yes, this one. i18n was a three day training course at my last workplace, because things that seem really obvious if you’re an Arabic speaker browsing a Russian website, aren’t at all visible to the original developer who has their environment set to English, develops in English, puts all the frontend labels in a “messages” config file to be sent for translation by another department in another country, and will likely never even see the end result.

[-] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago

The translators often have zero context and don’t know what the UI even looks like or what the software does.

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[-] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 37 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The reality is, it varies.

I just opened the language picker on the first site I had in my browser tabs (happened to be Epic games) and they display the language list using native names for the target language, rather than current language (screenshot attached)

I agree it's much better to do it this way.

As a developer, why it doesn't happen sometimes could just be by accident. If you intentionally set out to localise a site and put all text and menu elements into localisation files to be translated, then the language names are going to end up getting translated too. It takes conscious thought and UX design to realise that it's better for accessibility if that single part of the site is actually just static text, regardless of what language is selected.

And before anyone suggests using country flags in your language picker as a cool solution - please don't, because that sucks too. There isn't a 1:1 relationship between countries and languages and so the flag approach is a flawed compromise at best, and actually insulting at worst.

[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 27 points 1 week ago

This should be a universal symbol. Like a flag in the corner you can pretty safely assume might be for language. And then yeah each language listed in that language.

[-] withabeard@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 week ago

Which flag do we use for English?

I won't allow the stars and stripes

[-] sunbytes@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

Every time I make a tool like this, I try to wind up any Americans in the company by putting the US flag as English (simplified) and the Union Jack as English

It's a fun back and forth we have switching it between the two (inevitably someone makes a PR to put it back, and we go on)

[-] Stovetop@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Usually services in English will have English (US) and English (UK). Sorry to all the other English-speaking countries out there, though.

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[-] olafurp@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago

If people really insist then at least have a flag emoji

[-] Scrollone@feddit.it 18 points 1 week ago

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

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

You use both obviously

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[-] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 16 points 1 week ago

that's all fine and dandy until you get a porch of geese angry at you for using the brazilian flag or vice versa

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[-] hansolo@lemmy.today 18 points 1 week ago

Just bad UX design. Typically this should include flags or the language's name in the language if they really did a good job.

[-] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 33 points 1 week ago

Flags don't represent languages and therefore shouldn't be used to represent languages.

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[-] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 week ago

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.

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[-] curlywurly@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

this is a region switcher, rather than a language switcher (the website may of course be conflating the two, though)

[-] beerclue@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

You are right, it is a region switcher. I didn't realize that, maybe because the "change region" button was in a language I didn't know? :)

[-] alaphic@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Be that as it may, I honestly don't see what difference that would make in regards to OP's point... While it is spmewhat rather ironic, their argument over choice of word(s) in this particular situation is - imo, anyway- not one of semantics, but more of localization.

Either way, whether this is a language selector or region switcher (or any variation on such a theme for that matter), I believe the point OP was - correctly, if you ask me - making is: Whenever a UX/UI element is needed to prompt for proper display language, each language should be displayed however it appears in its native tongue as opposed to how it appears in whatever language is currently selected.

As an added bonus, this also solves the problem of a user inadvertently changing the language (or forgetting to lock their workstation when leaving briefly and returning to find it changed to "help them remember to lock their station when not in active use" allegedly... not that that's happened to anyone I know or anything) and being unable to change it back due to not knowing how to spell "English" in Japanese, for example.

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[-] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 1 week ago

Because they didn't think it through.

[-] emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 week ago

Ive had multiple situations on websites or in games where i accidentally switched the language to like- japanese or something and then had to fumble around trying to switch it back. On websites at least you can translate to find the right option but i recently installed a game on my steamdeck and the input was all screwed up, and while trying to fix it i accidentally switched the language and then navigated away from the menu. Trying to get back to the right setting with broken input and not understanding anything wasnt fun.

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[-] fubarx@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

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.

[-] cley_faye@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago

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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[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 1 week ago

Which language should the language picker be in?

the language of the listed language. Lots of language switchers do it that way

[-] Biyoo 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[-] Scrollone@feddit.it 8 points 1 week ago

You shouldn't use flags to represent languages

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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025

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