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Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

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Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#131

Post by thow-58d4e8b »

metafunctor wrote: post #12

My vote goes to the “Org Too Big, Nobody Cares” explanation. Or, perhaps, just the blissful America-centric ignorance about how there are regions in the world with multiple official languages. Haven't checked this recently, but a while ago Google Maps was still serving street names in a random language (the first name in alphabetical ordering), for streets which have names in multiple languages.

This triggers some PTSD with Google Maps navigation in Finland

We have two official languages - Finnish and Swedish, neither of them big enough to warrant any Google effort for proper text-to-speech. Hence, the voice navigation first pronounces street names in Finnish, then again in Swedish, both butchered by applying English spelling rules, all voiced by an extremely robotic voice

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#132

Post by ivirshup »

justinmayer wrote: post #99
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My theory has always been that in any given country, there are far more native speakers with misconfigured computing environments than there are visitors and nomadic folks like me. But then why doesn't Google just make it easier to set that setting? Honestly, when I'm in another country, I don't get too upset that Google results are in another language, I just get upset that I can't seem to find a simple way to cha…

Google's answer to this problem is, "Just log in! Then we will always know what language you prefer." So Google doesn't make it easier to change that setting because they want you to be logged in all the time so they can track you better.

Logging in does not completley solve this with google. A number of pages languages are still IP based.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#133

Post by logifail »

zarzavat wrote: post #101
jsjohnst wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is compounded by those location drop-downs, Where United States is always in the special top slot This used to be the case, but it seems to be becoming rare. It’s really annoying actually as alphabetically United States is way down in the list. This is how IP geolocation should be used imho, bubble up the probable location(s) to the top of the list, but DON’T assume the geo is right without asking.

While we are complaining about this, can we all agree that using plain for country is an anti pattern. There should be a fuzzy search. So many times I have to search for my country under United Kingdom UK Britain Great Britain England Only to find that it was “Great Britain” but collated in the B’s amongst Bhutan and Belgium, etc.

> So many times I have to search for my country under [...]

It's even better when you have to explain this specific oddity in a foreign language.

Try politely explaining to a German consular official that they probably need to look in their system's drop-down box under 'V' for 'Vereinigtes* Königreich' [UK] (instead of 'E' for 'England' or indeed 'G' for 'Großbritannien' [GB]) as they are attempting to enter passport details...

* 'United', in German...

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#134

Post by VeninVidiaVicii »

For several years, my google pixel phones were returning a strange mixture of Arabic results.

At the time, I was living in Texas, but I had taken some Arabic classes in college earlier that year, so I would often google sentences to see if they were grammatically correct.

Then, I contacted google support at least five times and they were never able to figure it out. Even on another pixel, I was STILL getting Arabic results.

After another year, I finally changed to Apple, and my google results are normal again.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#135

Post by darkerside »

criddell wrote: post #128
darkerside wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know exactly how to get to Google in English though, don't you? A new person picking up a misconfigured laptop seems much more likely to get lost than a temporary visitor to another country.

Google is built entirely upon the idea that they know their users and can therefore serve effective advertisements to them. The idea that they don't know what language their user wants seems absurd.

The fact that they don't know what every single new visitor to their site wants before they even get there is absurd?

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#136

Post by mtz_federico »

I believe that the best way to handle it is to show the page in the user's computer language and show a pop-up in the language of the country asking the user if they want to switch to the local language.

Of course, an important detail is putting the "stay in " button in the browser language.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#137

Post by mcv »

silvestrov wrote: post #84
justinmayer wrote: post #70

I met one-on-one with Google’s senior leadership in 2000 to talk about their internationalization efforts. This was very early in their trajectory, so I even sat down with Larry Page and chatted with him for half an hour. A year or two later I’m in Tokyo and talk to a new Google product manager based there. I tell her it is insane that Google serves me Japanese pages on my English-configured PowerBook just because I…

Better explanation: monolingual people thinks that computers will always be configured to the local language and any other setup is a "misconfiguration". In real life a large number of corporations (and developers) have their computers configured with English as this is the main language of the coorporation and makes IT-support much easier. (we don't even need to talk about how badly botched many language translation…

> These users will still want Google to return results in their native language.

Says who? This is a baseless assumption.

Just listen to the settings that specify what language the user wants. That's what it's for. And the browser should ask the OS or the user for their language preference. And if IT-support wants one language for the interface in order to facilitate support, they can still set the other language for browser preference.

Just ignoring all settings and making blind assumptions will guarantee you will be wrong many times.

Re: Why does Google use location for language rather than browser settings?

#140

Post by mcv »

silvestrov wrote: post #104
silvestrov wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better explanation: monolingual people thinks that computers will always be configured to the local language and any other setup is a "misconfiguration". In real life a large number of corporations (and developers) have their computers configured with English as this is the main language of the coorporation and makes IT-support much easier. (we don't even need to talk about how badly botched many language translation…

The problem with monolingual is the thought that there is One True Language. It isn't so. I write half my emails in one email, the other half in another. Often emails will have sections in one language (e.g. quote from another email) and other sections in a different language. Spelling tools must be able to detect language automatically to be of any value and be able to handle multiple languages within a single sente…

I've managed to set my phone to accept and suggest both in English and Dutch. Works reasonably well.
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