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I'm Not Japanese

sachagreif.com

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Re: I'm Not Japanese

#51

Post by kristofferR »

MarkSweep wrote: post #5

If you are traveling and Google is trying to send you to a country specific site, you can use this address to tell Google you actually really want to go to Google.com: http://www.google.com/ncr I believe the NCR stands for No Country Redirect. But as the article points out, many websites make it harder than it aught to be use them from other countries. Some Japenese websites sometimes even actively try to prevent for…

They've removed this. They've also removed the "Google.com in English"-button from foreign Google.com languages.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#52

Post by aristidb »

Actually, this problem also exists for native speakers in their own countries. I'm a German in Germany, yet when I'm searching for technical terms, in the overwhelming majority I want English results because they are better. (The German results are often just blog posts regurgitating what somebody else wrote in English.)

It used to be that I could use www.google.de for German searches, and www.google.com/ncr for English searches, but that does not (reliably) work anymore. I now grudgingly type www.google.com/?hl=en in the address bar more often than not.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#53

Post by ktizo »

rickmb wrote: post #34

This kind of thing pisses me off regularly. Google is one of the worst offenders, completely ignoring browser language preferences. But American websites in general are awful at this. They completely ignore local diversity and sensitivities and simply assume "one country, one language", so they will for instance happily present Flemish users with French interfaces. It's fucking offensive. If I type google.com instead…

It is slightly more offensive to assume that .com + browser settings == english above the country you are originating from, if you aren't speaking english, anyway.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#54

Post by DanBC »

smcl wrote: post #46
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...unless the language menu is itself localized. This happens so often its not funny. Even finding the language menu is hard, since its title often localized also.

This bugs the hell out of me, what is wrong with little flag + two letter code to indicate the current language, and maybe a little arrow to indicate that it is a menu you can select from.

I agree a drop down list is the nice solution.

But it's not as easy as a bunch of flags and ISO 3166 codes.

What happens for countries where there is no official language and two languages commonly spoken? (US: English and Spanish; Spain: Spanish and Catalon etc etc.)

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#55

Post by shock3naw »

rickmb wrote: post #36
patio11 wrote: post #3

>> Does Google assumes that we live in The Matrix, and you can learn a new country’s language instantly as soon as you move there? >> Google is making the (accurate) calculation that over 99% of people coming from a Japanese IP address whose computer says "Accept-Language: en-gb;q=0.9, en;q=0.7" are actually Japanese speakers of Japanese (true preference: "Accept-Language: ja-jp;q=1.0; en;q=0.000001") whose configura…

> Google is making the (accurate) calculation that over 99% of people coming from a Japanese IP address whose computer says "Accept-Language: en-gb;q=0.9, en;q=0.7" are actually Japanese speakers of Japanese Google is making the (completely wrong) assumption that those people cannot type google.co.jp instead of google.com and make their own choices. But at least in Japan they're probably right about the language. Goo…

Google isn't being lazy & insensitive. I18N is hard.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#56

Post by stefanve »

I would really like if they would look at your OS languages and use that. If I am in France (or any other non English speaking country) and I use my English languages device please show me the English site. Also the "you are on a mobile site therefore I show you my crappy mobile site, without the possibility to go do the desktop site" is really annoying especially on a tablet. While most browsers can be set on show desktop site allot of sites just look at the OS. Only browser that works is Opera. TL;DR stop thinking you know better than your users what languages/site format they want.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#58

Post by MagerValp »

davidw wrote: post #21
patio11 wrote: post #3

>> Does Google assumes that we live in The Matrix, and you can learn a new country’s language instantly as soon as you move there? >> Google is making the (accurate) calculation that over 99% of people coming from a Japanese IP address whose computer says "Accept-Language: en-gb;q=0.9, en;q=0.7" are actually Japanese speakers of Japanese (true preference: "Accept-Language: ja-jp;q=1.0; en;q=0.000001") whose configura…

I am logged on to Google, and they know I want English results and an English interface, because I've gone through and done all the settings. And yet, occasionally something goes wonky and they start showing me the interface in Italian again. I have no problems if their default is the local language - that's pretty much a no-brainer - but when I've told them in no uncertain terms what my own preferences are, they oug…

For some reason I tend to get Google's authentication pages in Hungarian (at least I think that's what it is), despite being in Sweden with sv_SE/sv/en_US/en configured in the browser and Google's services set to use English.

Fun!

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#59

Post by ktizo »

I’m not Japanese.

No shit.

But ever since my wife and I moved to Kyoto, the Internet sure seems to think we are.

The internet does not think. Or if it does, it has weird proto-dreams of kittens and porn. But it does not think of you, or your wife.

Google is supposedly this big, Skynet-like company that lives to collect data on us.

Stop believing the shiny box. It lies.

Yet it’s not very smart about language.

Pot. Kettle.

As soon as we stepped foot in the land of the rising sun, it asked my wife if she wanted to display Google in Japanese, and she clicked “yes” by mistake.

And unfortunately, it launched the nukes.

Not only did Google start showing her its user interface in Japanese, but the real problem was that all her search results were from Japanese sites, too!

But it didn't launch the nukes after all, but instead did exactly as instructed.

And going back seemed impossible.

Here in our story, our protagonist discovers entropy.

Going through Google.com instead of Google.co.jp did nothing. Changing her langage settings was just as useless.

My god. Those evil fiends. Is just like that bit in the bible where they build a tower to heaven and stuff.

Turns out Google Search uses a different language preference page.

Wooo! We have finality. There are two preference panes. Which are really hard to find if you change language to something you cant read by pressing the wrong buttons.

And furthermore, google are just a big company and have no magic wizards that do magic and stuff. They do not know what you are thinking unless you are within a couple of meters at best. So do not expect things to know what you meant to do but didn't for at least the next 2 years or so.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#60

Post by propercoil »

i was about to post a blog of how angry i am that i see the localized version of google when i change to analytics or change to y adwords account it pisses me off! just give me ENGLISH!
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