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My native language is Mandarin. My interface langauge is English. Being in a tech job, when resolving issues with interface with international user base, takin

My native language is Mandarin. My interface langauge is English. Being in a tech job, when resolving issues with interface with international user base, taking screenshots in english, for example, has the most far-reaching benefit. More people can understand it. Also many companies (including Microsoft) have poor translations. Using English interface bypass this issue.

eriknstr 9y ago
On a related note, part of the reason that I've had my computers configured to use English language is that it's easier to find solutions, both in terms of searching for problems like clicking foo does not produce bar to following guides for how to do something with a document in LibreOffice, a picture in GIMP or Inkscape, a 3D model in Blender etc. Aside from that, like many others I also find the English interfaces to be far superior in quality to localized interfaces which will often have errors in their translation. Furthermore some choices of words in translations just look plain dumb to me even though they are correct.
- netsharc 9y ago
  One of the greatest (in the sarcastic meaning of the word) work of localisation is Excel translating function names. So =SUM() is =SUMME() in German. Luckily opening the file works in different languages.
  - Freak_NL 9y ago
    Excel deserves a special place in hell for its atrocious approach to localisation. If you were to give a Dutch Excel user a perfectly valid CSV file (i.e., comma-separated values), their Excel will fail to see it as tabulated data when they double-click the file and stuff everything in a single column. This is because someone at some point decided that in Dutch, tabulated data is (apparently) separated by a semi-colon instead of a comma, so (obviously) a file containing comma-separated values should have its values separated by semi-colons. So if you mail a Dutch person a CSV file that follows RFC 4180, chances are they can't open it properly because of Excel. A surprisingly large number of otherwise capable people get stuck at this point. (OpenOffice/LibreOffice is smart enough to recognise tabulated data when it sees it, and will simply present you with the import screen for tabulated data with its helpful live preview of the columns.)
  - eriknstr 9y ago
    Yes, oh my god, that's terrible :( I prefer LibreOffice but sometimes I run into Excel at a job or similar and the last time I did the computer I had to use was using Norwegian locale (I've been living in Norway since the age of four) and there was no way to switch it to English without admin privileges (which to me is a pretty huge WTF moment by its own right), and even if I had been able to I don't know if Excel has the English locale installed or not. So when I had to use Excel all the formulas were named in Norwegian. I downloaded a portable version of LibreOffice but that triggered the anti-virus :I Sometimes I would use Google Docs instead but for company confidential information I obviously won't upload that data to Google so then I'm stuck with Excel. Even for non-critical data Google Docs might not be an option simply because you are working on the file together with someone else who is using Excel and constantly uploading and downloading the file would be annoying, as well as the risk of Google Docs not supporting 100% of the features of Excel leading to complicated spreadsheets getting mangled. (Same problem with using LibreOffice to work with someone using Microsoft Office.)

eriknstr 9y ago

On a related note, part of the reason that I've had my computers configured to use English language is that it's easier to find solutions, both in terms of searching for problems like clicking foo does not produce bar to following guides for how to do something with a document in LibreOffice, a picture in GIMP or Inkscape, a 3D model in Blender etc. Aside from that, like many others I also find the English interfaces to be far superior in quality to localized interfaces which will often have errors in their translation. Furthermore some choices of words in translations just look plain dumb to me even though they are correct.

netsharc 9y ago
One of the greatest (in the sarcastic meaning of the word) work of localisation is Excel translating function names. So =SUM() is =SUMME() in German. Luckily opening the file works in different languages.
- Freak_NL 9y ago
  Excel deserves a special place in hell for its atrocious approach to localisation. If you were to give a Dutch Excel user a perfectly valid CSV file (i.e., comma-separated values), their Excel will fail to see it as tabulated data when they double-click the file and stuff everything in a single column. This is because someone at some point decided that in Dutch, tabulated data is (apparently) separated by a semi-colon instead of a comma, so (obviously) a file containing comma-separated values should have its values separated by semi-colons. So if you mail a Dutch person a CSV file that follows RFC 4180, chances are they can't open it properly because of Excel. A surprisingly large number of otherwise capable people get stuck at this point. (OpenOffice/LibreOffice is smart enough to recognise tabulated data when it sees it, and will simply present you with the import screen for tabulated data with its helpful live preview of the columns.)
- eriknstr 9y ago
  Yes, oh my god, that's terrible :( I prefer LibreOffice but sometimes I run into Excel at a job or similar and the last time I did the computer I had to use was using Norwegian locale (I've been living in Norway since the age of four) and there was no way to switch it to English without admin privileges (which to me is a pretty huge WTF moment by its own right), and even if I had been able to I don't know if Excel has the English locale installed or not. So when I had to use Excel all the formulas were named in Norwegian. I downloaded a portable version of LibreOffice but that triggered the anti-virus :I Sometimes I would use Google Docs instead but for company confidential information I obviously won't upload that data to Google so then I'm stuck with Excel. Even for non-critical data Google Docs might not be an option simply because you are working on the file together with someone else who is using Excel and constantly uploading and downloading the file would be annoying, as well as the risk of Google Docs not supporting 100% of the features of Excel leading to complicated spreadsheets getting mangled. (Same problem with using LibreOffice to work with someone using Microsoft Office.)