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I'm Not Japanese

sachagreif.com

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Re: I'm Not Japanese

#101

Post by aptwebapps »

briandear wrote: post #88
ktizo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It asked her if she wanted Japanese and she clicked yes and it gave her Japanese. What crap do you think anyone is pulling here? Also, if in Japan, I would be surprised to find google.com not to be in Japanese, and I would expect to have to perhaps make some kind of preparations for the fact that the majority of the world does not speak my language and that my electronic devices and services are not universal metatro…

Yes, but google.co.jp does just fine. The automatic country redirects are the main issue. I wouldn't go to Microsoft.com and expect it to be in Chinese any more than if I went to Baidu.cn and expected it to be in English. The country domain is the ideal way to handle regional preference, I don't need the software doing it for me. I'm not an idiot, stop treating me like one.

Yes, but you're going to run into the problem that patio11 pointed out. You are in a tiny minority and they don't want to inconvenience the vast majority just because your preference is 'better'.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#102

Post by tommi »

briandear wrote: post #88
ktizo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It asked her if she wanted Japanese and she clicked yes and it gave her Japanese. What crap do you think anyone is pulling here? Also, if in Japan, I would be surprised to find google.com not to be in Japanese, and I would expect to have to perhaps make some kind of preparations for the fact that the majority of the world does not speak my language and that my electronic devices and services are not universal metatro…

Yes, but google.co.jp does just fine. The automatic country redirects are the main issue. I wouldn't go to Microsoft.com and expect it to be in Chinese any more than if I went to Baidu.cn and expected it to be in English. The country domain is the ideal way to handle regional preference, I don't need the software doing it for me. I'm not an idiot, stop treating me like one.

Country domain is the worst way to handle language preference. We already have a perfectly valid way to handle language preference with Accept-Language. There is no need to register domain under every possible country domain you could localize. And countries do not equal languages. Bilingual countries would be screwed if country domains were the only option.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#103

Post by billswift »

briandear wrote: post #88
ktizo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It asked her if she wanted Japanese and she clicked yes and it gave her Japanese. What crap do you think anyone is pulling here? Also, if in Japan, I would be surprised to find google.com not to be in Japanese, and I would expect to have to perhaps make some kind of preparations for the fact that the majority of the world does not speak my language and that my electronic devices and services are not universal metatro…

Yes, but google.co.jp does just fine. The automatic country redirects are the main issue. I wouldn't go to Microsoft.com and expect it to be in Chinese any more than if I went to Baidu.cn and expected it to be in English. The country domain is the ideal way to handle regional preference, I don't need the software doing it for me. I'm not an idiot, stop treating me like one.

>I'm not an idiot, stop treating me like one.

Many people are however, and mass media, which includes Google, however they may try to deny it, lives by the numbers, which means adapting to the lowest common denominator. Just think, as the Internet spreads, Google will evolve (devolve) closer and closer to broadcast TV!

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#104

Post by ktizo »

rickmb wrote: post #82
ktizo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? The country I'm visiting from says nothing definitive about my language of choice. Absolutely nothing. Choosing google.com instead of google.nl however is a clear choice. Setting the preferred language of my browser is an even more explicit choice. How can honoring explicit choices be more offensive than assuming the visitor is an idiot who can't think for themselves?

"Choosing google.com instead of google.nl however is a clear choice."

No it isn't, .com is the global domain, not the english one.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#105

Post by kristofferR »

ktizo wrote: post #104
rickmb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The country I'm visiting from says nothing definitive about my language of choice. Absolutely nothing. Choosing google.com instead of google.nl however is a clear choice. Setting the preferred language of my browser is an even more explicit choice. How can honoring explicit choices be more offensive than assuming the visitor is an idiot who can't think for themselves?

"Choosing google.com instead of google.nl however is a clear choice." No it isn't, .com is the global domain, not the english one.

True, but even Google.us, which abolutely is an American domain extension, is set to thai for me.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#106

Post by cpach »

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…

»This is a hack around censorship laws in a few places«

Wow, I had no idea. I thought it was some obnoxius kind of load-balancing or something like that :)

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#107

Post by LargeWu »

Maybe it doesn't work as well as we want it to on the fringes. Maybe, just maybe, there are bugs in their software. I know, it's hard to fathom, bugs in software. Google is not immune to this just because they're Google. The fact that everybody seems to think they are entitled to perfectly working free software products is an amazing testament to the quality of what they produce.

Google products are in fact written by humans, and are therefore imperfect. It will have bugs. So let's all rein in the misplaced outrage and reflect on all the amazing stuff Google provides to us, free of charge.

Then, please go watch this Louis CK clip, and then re-evaluate whether this is worth a blog post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#108

Post by dllthomas »

kulkarnic wrote: post #99
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…

This is not entirely so. When I visited Japan, my browser prompted "We've detected you've moved to Japan, would you like to change..." That to me seems wrong. No one learns a language in 7 hours.

But many people learn a language before going to a country, and some portion of those will want to use it because switching back and forth between languages can be hard. I don't think it's a bad question to ask, at all.

Re: I'm Not Japanese

#109

Post by jadyoyster »

tedunangst wrote: post #94
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…

Do the sites in question even have Flemish interfaces?

Flemish is a dialect of Dutch and therefore they should present a Dutch language interface if available, but really the only sensible thing to do when detecting a Belgian IP is defaulting to English (or browser preference) and making it really easy to switch to other languages.

Google has been OK for me (except when it starts to display in German out of the blue), but other sites like myspace are pathetic. In a country where the majority speaks Dutch, they default to French and make it very confusing to change the language.

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