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

submitted 2 weeks 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 44 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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 24 points 2 weeks 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 12 points 2 weeks 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 3 points 2 weeks 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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[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks 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.

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[-] scoutfdt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 weeks 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.

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[-] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 27 points 2 weeks ago

because most web developers are morons :/

[-] tempest@lemmy.ca 24 points 2 weeks ago

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

[-] skisnow@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 weeks 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 2 weeks 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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[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 23 points 2 weeks 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 11 points 2 weeks 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 6 points 2 weeks 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 4 points 2 weeks 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.

[-] tal@lemmy.today 2 points 2 weeks ago

No wonder agile is hated

I think that the basic ideas are reasonable. Keep in touch with your team and evaluate the current situation, track progress, stuff like that.

It's just that the excessive codification of the practices becomes overbearing.

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[-] LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe 4 points 2 weeks ago

Out of curiosity, would you put Deutsch before or after 日本語?

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[-] tiramichu@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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.

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[-] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 19 points 2 weeks ago

Perfectly comprehensible if you speak english, look:

[-] PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk 5 points 2 weeks ago

I think i've had a stroke

[-] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago

Is that real?

[-] enthusiasticamoeba@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 weeks ago

It's Dutch uwu speak, but the real version would not be much better: "Oeps! De trein is stuk. Wij zijn heel hard aan het werk om dit te maken. Misschien kan je beter fietsen."

(Oops! The train is broken. We're working very hard to repair it. Maybe you'd be better off biking.)

[-] tal@lemmy.today 9 points 2 weeks ago

Dutch uwu speak

Logically, it makes sense that this exists, but still not something that I've ever thought about.

[-] LarsIsCool@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

[-] porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

[-] sniggleboots@europe.pub 3 points 2 weeks ago

owo

[-] curlywurly@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

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

[-] beerclue@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks 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 5 points 2 weeks 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.

[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 11 points 2 weeks 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 14 points 2 weeks ago

Which flag do we use for English?

I won't allow the stars and stripes

[-] sunbytes@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks 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)

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[-] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago

Because they didn't think it through.

[-] mechoman444@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

You don't speak dutch? 🤮

[-] my_hat_stinks@programming.dev 2 points 2 weeks ago

There's plenty of examples of software doing this right and displaying each language in the selector in that language, it's hard to say why they've localised it here. Most likely they just didn't consider how the user interacts with that element and localised it the same way they translate everything else, but that could be down to anyone from the developer habitually running everything through localisation to company policy where they couldn't get an exception for that element.

You'd have to ask support for whatever software you're using for more detail, chances are you won't get anything useful back but if you're lucky they might fix it.

[-] beerclue@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

This is Fairphone's website. I'm not that anal about it, doesn't bother me too much, but I did see it on several websites, and I'm just confused...

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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025

155 points (98.7% liked)

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