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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?

#291

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #282
onpensionsterm wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"march 11" which is how we say dates in English anyway I think every time this topic comes up I come across someone with this misconception - usually from a country that celebrates the 4th of July.

So I agree with your point that the way dates are said varies. But your example isn't very good. That's just the name of the holiday, and should not be used to infer anything else.

I think you're missing the point. In the UK, for example, 2/2 is "the second of February", not "February second".

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

#292

Post by davidgay »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #282
onpensionsterm wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"march 11" which is how we say dates in English anyway I think every time this topic comes up I come across someone with this misconception - usually from a country that celebrates the 4th of July.

So I agree with your point that the way dates are said varies. But your example isn't very good. That's just the name of the holiday, and should not be used to infer anything else.

Nth of month (with month sometimes elided) is most definitely standard English.

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

#293

Post by Dylan16807 »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #291
Dylan16807 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I agree with your point that the way dates are said varies. But your example isn't very good. That's just the name of the holiday, and should not be used to infer anything else.

I think you're missing the point. In the UK, for example, 2/2 is "the second of February", not "February second".

I understand the point entirely. I said I agree with it.

But at the same time, "Fourth of July" should not be used to infer anything about how Americans say dates. It doesn't help prove that both orders are used for dates.

In the real world, some people say day-month and some say month-day, and the holiday is called "Fourth of July". In a counterfactual world where everyone switched to month-day, the holiday would still be called "Fourth of July". So you can't use "Fourth of July" to demonstrate what people actually use for dates.

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

#294

Post by benhurmarcel »

liotier wrote: post #195
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…

French native speaker here. UX consistency, shared Internet culture, habits from the early 90's and error messages I can actually find on the Web are the reasons why I always set my computing to the english language. I'm trying to have English language but metric units, 24 hour clock and ISO dates... Seldom can I achieve that. On the French-language mandatory corporate Windows laptop, Excel formulas are translated in…

> I'm trying to have English language but metric units, 24 hour clock and ISO dates... Seldom can I achieve that.

I do the same. There is usually a locale available with that, look for English (Ireland), English (Europe), English (Denmark), or English (Germany).

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

#295

Post by benhurmarcel »

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.

It doesn't always work. When I'm in Spain, with my Google account configured to use English, Youtube search returns videos in Spanish (even though the Youtube interface is displayed in English).

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

#296

Post by jbj »

Same annoyance since I remember learning about the internet, and realizing the language for computers with the least friction is US english.

One thing I found extremely bizare is that `wget` on my work computer gives status and error messages in my local language.

I have no clue how it ended up like this, but I am suspecting it is due to the usage of a local mirror of macports.

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

#297

Post by areoform »

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…

They should give people the option at the top, and repeat it as necessary. They shouldn't just assume.

That's the most annoying thing. When I travel, I still want to see stuff in imperial units, and Google just switches to Metric and stays stuck that way.

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

#298

Post by benhurmarcel »

mbustamanter wrote: post #129
arepublicadoceu wrote: post #22

My personal papercut is with YouTube. It doesn’t care that: - my browser is in English - that I’m logged in and with English as my language - that my region is set to the U.S. - that I only used English keywords on the search box It still gives me Portuguese results as my geo ip is in Brazil. It’s infuriating.

Same, but with Spanish. My first language is Spanish but 99% of the media I consume is in English. Each time I log into YouTube my location is set to Chile and language to Spanish. Each time I change them to US and English. I've even sent complaints but nothing ever happens.

If that helps, even if your location and language was set correctly, you'd still get local results in Youtube.

My Youtube account is configured to use English, with a location in France. It still returns videos in Spanish when I'm in Spain. The UI is in English, but the search results in Spanish.

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

#300

Post by geoduck14 »

toolslive wrote: post #212
liotier wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French native speaker here. UX consistency, shared Internet culture, habits from the early 90's and error messages I can actually find on the Web are the reasons why I always set my computing to the english language. I'm trying to have English language but metric units, 24 hour clock and ISO dates... Seldom can I achieve that. On the French-language mandatory corporate Windows laptop, Excel formulas are translated in…

Tip:Pretend to be Irish. You get English, but you also get SI and euro.

> Tip:Pretend to be Irish

Best tip I've seen all day!

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