Location-Based Language Settings = Traveller Nightmare
Right, time for a rant.
Something which has slowly grown to annoy me is the number of websites which will change my language settings simply because they have managed to work out where I am sitting right now. In short, what I’d like to say to all webmasters who do this is “STOP IT!”
For me, I’ve noticed this problem because I’m primarily an English speaker who happens to be in France. Yes, I make good use of my sudden French settings and get some instant French practise, but by and large I just wish websites and mobile apps would leave language settings be.
For instance, I searched for something on Google using English keywords. I found a site in English which fit the bill. When I clicked on that link it decided I’d prefer the French version of the site. Surely, if I’d wanted the French version, I’d have searched using French keywords and found the French version of the site? I don’t even know if Google or the website is responsible for the switch. What made this even more annoying is that it was a site which I have an account with – and I was logged in! Hello, you guys KNOW my language preferences. What are you doing? I fully expect my personal settings to override your guesses while I’m logged in, thanks.
In fact, many sites I use will override my regular language settings with a location-based language setting. It’s usually the big ones, too: Google & Facebook spring to mind (although with Facebook it’s just the login screen, which is reasonable). Google language settings are seriously annoying: Just when you think the language setting is set for every single Google service (oh yes, different settings for each service – thanks Google), you accidentally click something which changes things back to wherever you are again. What’s really annoying is that these sites which automagically decide on a language for you think they’re so right in their language choice that they go and hide the language settings from you and make it difficult to change it back to what you want.
I used the IMDB movie app on my phone to check out popular movies. It had settings to be able to pick which database the info came from, yet despite my choices of imdb.com and amazon.co.uk it insisted on providing me with the French versions of the movie titles. Movie titles are obscure, you know? They’re translated to be catchy in that language. So, even if you translate them back to English, you’ll have more luck working out which movie it is by recognising the poster. Either way, after deliberately setting these database choices, the app had overridden my choices simply because of where I happened to be. Turns out that they do this on the main site too, and for any app which access the IMDB database. Annoying!
Automatically changing the language is ridiculous! Leave it be and ASK people which language they’d prefer.
I think web-developers in English-speaking countries probably don’t think about this location thing very much. Their language settings stay the same as they travel around the country. In their heads, they’re probably doing everyone in foreign countries a favour – and I can see how they might think that.
Consider the average traveller in Europe. Every day they travel around, crossing arbitrary lines which for some reason change the language of all the big sites they use every day. While they might know how to order a meal and book into a hotel in that language, you can hardly expect everyone to be proficient in all of them.
Think about people in multi-language countries. You are driving them crazy.
Now, here’s a thought: When using a phone or laptop, normally the users have already chosen the language they prefer to use. Now developers, do you think it would be possible to work with that language choice? Thanks.
Here’s another similar complaint: Paypal seem to have divided their customer service by country. So, in France I’m told I can’t access the Paypal help menu in English. Seriously. Not to mention that I only wanted to send a quick email to ask a simple question. I clicked “Contact us” and got this:
I’m not sure why an international company based in an English-speaking country wants me to try and navigate their help system in French just so I can send an email in awful French to some poor sod who will have trouble understanding my awful French and who most likely doesn’t speak English and will pass my email around the office stressing out until they find an English speaker to help answer my very simple question. This makes no sense.
My language settings are in English. Let me access a help system and a “Contact Us” web-form in English. I’ll most likely get all the information I need without bothering you. If not, an English person would be able to answer my question quickly. If it so happens that my question is specific to something in France, I’m sure my query can be forwarded internally to a bilingual helpdesk person in France. In the meantime, monolingual French-speaking customers are able to be attended by the French staff. What a thought!
Seriously web developers, quit making language settings automatic according to country. ASK.
Image Credit: RockCohen
[...] I also had a similar rant about how annoying it is when websites change the language settings according to where you are. As a traveller in Europe, a resident in a multi-language country or an expat who’s still [...]
Thanks for this warning, we’re going to get to experience all this soon, no doubt. Though my (bad) French is still better than my (3 lessons-worth) Norwegian.
At B’s work Google comes up in Norwegian – something about how it’s been set up by the main office in Oslo. Exciting.
Geez – Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I would say that, for the vast majority of users, having a website displayed in the dominant language of the country it is being accessed from is a major positive.
In a perfect world, websites would determine the language to display based on the HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE details in the Header, as set by the browser (as a user with an English browser will probably want sites in English), or would look for language codes in the referring URL (ie Google sets a “hl” GET variable with the search language), but this is not a perfect world – developers are dealing with sites and systems which are based on what were best practices when the website foundations were set down.
Considering that the concept of having one website available in multiple languages would have been considered witchcraft only a few years ago means that at least we are making the experience better for the majority of users, even if sometimes catering for the majority means that we inconvenience the minority.
I know all this. Just piping up for the minority, though.
I disagree. I’m in the Philippines and we have over a hundred languages here, with the dominant one being Tagalog. That being said, when we travel around the country to places where people speak a different language, we switch to English so we and the locals can understand each other.
I’ve just moved back from the US and all the major websites have suddenly decided that I would prefer to read everything in Tagalog. Hell no! I love the three different local languages I know, but English is just so much easier to read. Words are shorter and things are easier to express. For example, in Tagalog, the word “worrying” is “nakakapagpabagabag.” Now, even if you were Filipino, would you rather read the short word with fewer similar syllables or would you rather read the long word that’s all a’s? Heck, we use a’s in so many words, we even joke about our ability to have conversations with just that vowel. (an extreme case is “Bababa ba? Bababa. A, bababa.)
When I first came home, I had missed speaking in Tagalog so much that I spoke only in Tagalog and emailed only in Tagalog. While folks were happy enough to talk to me in Tagalog, EVERYONE complained about the emails. A majority of the Filipinos who have access to the internet would rather read in English.
I really don’t like all the websites changing my settings to Tagalog without my permission. It slows me down and even when I know where the settings button is, I have to remind myself that we call English “Inggles” so it’s in the languages starting with I, not E.
I am an expat In Brazil, and I COMPLETELY agree.
It should NOT be that complicated.
I made a choice, just stick to it, and IF there is not alternative, by all means, give me the Portuguese!
Sheesh!
This annoys the shit out of me also.
One fix is to run a vpn on your pc back to your country of choice so the web sites get that IP address and think you are there.
This is very annoying for me also. I would like to have my PayPal account in Indonesian, but because I am now in Canada, I am forced to choose between French or English. I tried to connect via an Indonesian proxy but they trace the route back to Canada. Even if I use an high anonimity proxy, the first page is in Indonesian, but then the language change back to English when I log in because according to their informations, I was in Canada when I created my PayPal account, and nothing can be changed, even if I move to another country.
Beside the problem of language, I do not accept that web sites check my location. With Facebook, I can choose the Indonesian language, but I am harassed with advertisement from Canadian advertiser, I would prefer to look advertisement from Indonesia. Like you, I’d like to say to all webmasters who do this is “STOP IT!
I know what you mean. Now that I’m back in Asia, I get Facebook ads in all sorts of languages. I appreciate the Philippine ads, but I really don’t like getting ads in Korean, Japanese, Chinese or any language that I can’t read. It’s very annoying.
Yes, yes, yes!!! This drives me CRAZY! I’m currently living in Provence, and for some reason hp.com comes up in Spanish!!?!?
One of the best tips I’ve gotten was http://www.google.com/ncr I have no idea what ncr stands for, but it defaults everything back to English.
For me, google is the worst offender that I experience… I access http://www.google.com, it redirects me to http://www.google.com. in the local language, luckily it has a link at the bottom to go to http://www.google.com or switch to an english version of the location specific site. For almost everything else that google offers though things are worse, automatically choosing the language based on where I am and often not giving me the chance to change it… sometimes when I can change it, clicking on some ajaxy bit gets it in local language… sometimes applications are downloaded in the local language, even if I’ve managed to force certain pages leading upto that point with &hl=en… I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to read the ‘Accept Language’ header while doing the much more complicated task of trying to guess what languages you can read based on your location. Argh…
Yeah, currently it’s the Android store which bugs me the most from Google. Every bloody time I look at it it’s in French. Even when I am logged in!
Meanwhile, the Mac App Store and iTunes are my main pet hate. There is NO option to change it to English, so any apps I buy will probably be installed in French. I don’t want the French versions – and I don’t want to do the installation in French! Same goes for iTunes – now all the TV shows I might have bought are only available to me in French. I really don’t want a dubbed French version when I could understand (and prefer) the original English version just fine. Why the hell won’t these dumbarse companies let us choose our own preferred language, huh?
I am in the same situation and totally fed up of sites (particularly Google) switching me to whatever language it thinks I should be speaking based on my location. I travel all over Europe for work all the time, sometimes spending a few months in a certain country. I am not unusual I know hundreds of English speaking people that do this so in reality there must be hundreds of thousands or millions of English speakers working across Europe at any one time. All these people have to suffer the stupidity of location based language settings. I am normally a calm person but it gets so frustrating; when you think you have found the very last language setting possible yet another Google page comes up in another language. Rant over