It doesn't make much sense that Google switched languages when you wife told it to? You are kidding right?
And you think you are being fair!!!
I'm Not Japanese
111–120 of 129 posts
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
What method is more reliable than guessing the language based on the IP address?
Ask the user, remember preference. Possibly Accept-Language (note - not locale, as locale != language). But, ask the user.
That's kind of orthogonal to how you guess the user's language. It is, in fact, what Google is doing.
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#113>> 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 From the article: >The problem is compounded by the fact that most of the time, you have no way of doing anything about it. And when you can do something, it’s often buried in layers of menus, which –don’t forget–…
This is only a problem for those who:
1. Are in the tiny minority of people in Japan who don't speak Japanese
AND
2. Chose to switch to Japanese when Google asked them if they'd prefer Google in Japanese or English
Google guessing that she might have been Japanese was not the major problem here. The ultimate problem was her incorrectly stating her language preference. It's hard to see what reasonable measures Google could have taken to inconvenience fewer people here.
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#114>> 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.
"would you like to change..."
That to me seems wrong"
You're getting offended because a portal asked you a question? Really?
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#115To me, the saddest thing about this problem is that the solution is over to just write less code. Be less smart, instigate fewer aggressive redirects to "mobile" sites.
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Shouldn't US users then be using google.us, and uk users use google.co.uk and should google.com just redirect to the language of the location of the user?
Yes. But google.us acts the same as google.com when it comes to location redirects though (e.g., I have a Canadian IP and en-us;0.9 Accept-Language, it redirects me to google.ca).
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#117>> 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.
You could speak both and prefer to use the Japanese version when in Japan (to get better local results, for instance). The site has no way of knowing your particular situation, so they ask rather than defaulting to one or the other.
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Why is it the worst way to handle language preference?
If you are a local you are probably very used to your country domain, it is probably on par with .com.
Now the Accept-Language is quite subtle and guess how that is set up in an internet café? Can you even change it? Will the next customer be happy about that? I'd be mighty impressed if more than 1% of the people that surfs the web has a clue about Accept-Language.
Also, if one asks for a local country domain that really should be the localized version, sometimes I actually want to use google for a language different other than my own.
If I for instance wanted to search in English on something that has a similar wording as Swedish I'd like to go to google.com in order to quickly get rid of the Swedish-bias (since that doesn't work I sometimes use google.co.uk instead).
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#119Actually, 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 Engl…
And I use DuckDuckGo instead of Google. The upside is that if I want German results, I can just go to Google - no annoying configurations, just DDG for English and Google for German. Still, I really resent this behavior by Google.
Just had yet another try at switching to DDG. The results are so extremely inferior to Google that I switched back after I had to use !g for 5 of 5 searches to find what I want.
Re: I'm Not Japanese
#120It gets even better. My OS is in English. My browser is set to English and prefers English. My Android phone is in English. I have Google set to English. At all the 3 different places I could find.
Most of Google is in English. https://accounts.google.com/b/0/SmsAuthConfig is set to German with no possibility to change it (that I can see). The Android market shows me German movies, German books and German games.
I honestly believe the only way to have a decent, single-language experience is to live in a purely English speaking country, never move away, never use a device that was used in a non-English-speaking-country and of course speak English.
Seems to be really hard to save somewhere what someone wants -.-