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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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[-] hansolo@lemmy.today 0 points 2 weeks 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.

[-] blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io 0 points 2 weeks ago

Flags don't make sense.
Otherwise this is completely valid:

( ) German 🇧🇷
( ) Italian 🇧🇷
( ) Japanese 🇧🇷

[-] hansolo@lemmy.today -1 points 2 weeks ago

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.

[-] blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io 0 points 2 weeks ago

There are some German dialects that only survive (barely) in Brazil.

And the German language is much older than Germany.

[-] hansolo@lemmy.today 0 points 2 weeks ago

German dialects are still....German language, yes?

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[-] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 0 points 2 weeks ago

What flag do you use for english ?

[-] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks ago

Use the UK flag if the site is in English and use the American flag if it's in Webster English. Seems pretty evident to me.

[-] eRac@lemmings.world -1 points 2 weeks ago

A split combo of the two is pretty common.

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[-] fubarx@lemmy.world 0 points 2 weeks 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.

[-] Biyoo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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.

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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025

155 points (98.7% liked)

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