4 ms·

Please Google, just because my browser is in Berlin, that doesn't mean I speak German. I'd like to look at your product. I might even be interested. But I can't

Please Google, just because my browser is in Berlin, that doesn't mean I speak German. I'd like to look at your product. I might even be interested. But I can't understand what you're telling me. I have language preferences in my account, and you definitely know who I am because you're showing my picture in the top right corner. So why does where I am take precedence over who I am?

ATsch 7y ago
The best part is that every time your geolocation changes, all google products will reset your language.
- buf 7y ago
  This is false. I frequently travel to Bulgaria and Japan. My language remains in English in all products.
  - sulam 7y ago
    True for me. I (used to) travel in various parts of Europe regularly and got Google (and the ads) in whatever place I happened to be.
    - marcus_holmes 7y ago
      When I was wandering around SE Asia I mostly got English, but that was probably because Google hadn't translated things to Khmer/Malay/etc.
plantain 7y ago
And for the bonus - changing your language at the bottom takes you back to the home page rather than staying on the screen you were looking at.
- ExactActuation 7y ago
  But their engineers passed leetcode so they're super smart /s
fireattack 7y ago
This is an e-store page. It makes sense to follow the region instead of language preferences. The problem is they ideally should separate UI language from region settings, but most sites don't. And they may have some difficulties to do so because they could have specific products that they simply don't have info in languages other than the local one. If you just want to read the description, you can simply change the region below. If you visit https://www.apple.com/jp/shop/ https://www.apple.com/jp/shop/, it only has Japanese too. You can't use JP region store and have it in English at the same time.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  I live in Belgium; in an area of Belgium that primarily speaks French. I happen to speak French as well (though I'm not originally from Belgium, I am French), but given the places I've lived in my life that's more a coincidence than anything else. I do not speak flemish (be-nl). Yet, my page of the store is in flemish. My browser (a Google browser!) is configured to ask for pages in english, and as a fallback, in french at a lower priority. There is a French version of the store, and it's still not sending it. And a lot of people here in Belgium speak exclusively English. German is also an official language in the country, though only actively spoken in a small part of it. (Map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium) I have no obvious way of changing the language, other than a flag which rather points to changing the region. Turns out, in the region picker (https://store.google.com/regionpicker https://store.google.com/regionpicker), "Belgium French" is a region, separate from "Flemish". When I click "Belgium French", a warning appears. In Flemish. In other words, almost everything about language that store page can get wrong, it does get wrong.
  - fireattack 7y ago
    > a warning appears. In Flemish. No, it will appear in two languages, top one being your current region/language, and bottom being your target region/language. So in your case, it should show in nl-BE and fr-BE. Here is a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/ICwIgxH.png https://i.imgur.com/ICwIgxH.png
- 7y ago
satysin 7y ago
I always wondered wtf the browsers language setting is for. Can a website not query this for the preferred language rather than make a language decision based on an IP address geo lookup? I am English, my browsers language order is to set English (UK) then English (generic). No foreign languages. However I live in France and if I visit a site it will give me a French version due to my location rather than the language set within the browser. I (apparently wrongly) assumed saying I want content in English would mean the website would query what language the user wants and then send that. Could someone explain what the browser language preference is for?
- ubercow13 7y ago
  That is what it's for, it's sent in the request header to every site you visit. It's just that not many sites honour it.
- kevincox 7y ago
  It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem which is incredibly frustrating, I wish websites would start to respect it so users start to configure their browser properly. Users don't configure it (and quite possibly don't know how) so many websites ignore it. Many websites ignore it so it isn't that useful to learn how to configure it.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    On my sites, the URL parameters wins. For example, when the user is explicitly changing a page's language. #2 is the site language cookie from a previous visit. If that fails, #3 is the language the browser requests. If all those fail, English, because it is the most common language the company uses internally. In our user testing, we run into a lot of situations where the computer's primary user, and the person who set it up, are a child, who speaks English. But our site is more geared toward their parents, who often will speak the language of their homeland. For this reason, I make it stupidly easy to change languages, and we have a policy that ALL content has to be translated into English, Spanish, and Chinese, which covers 99.8% of our customers. You don't find out these sorts of things through modern "telemetry" gathering and such current methods of testing. You find these things out by going into the field and watching your customers use your products. But interacting with wetware is beneath people in the SV bubble.
odiroot 7y ago
> Please Google, just because my browser is in Berlin, that doesn't mean I speak German. I'd like to look at your product. I might even be interested. But I can't understand what you're telling me. Interesting. I'm in the same situation but I do speak German (as a third language) and it didn't even click with me at first the website is indeed in German.
moeffju 7y ago
Because Google is still really bad at e-commerce and doesn't distinguish content language from locale and local law. You should be seeing the store in your preferred language, asking for your locale's address format, and following German trade law. But alas, you are in Germany, you get the full German experience. Also nobody really looks at accept language headers anymore, I feel.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  > Also nobody really looks at accept language headers anymore, I feel. Which is funny, because Google is always coming up with better, more effective ways to track users.
dang 7y ago
(This comment was posted when the URL was https://store.google.com/product/pixel_buds https://store.google.com/product/pixel_buds. Since changed.)

ATsch 7y ago

The best part is that every time your geolocation changes, all google products will reset your language.

buf 7y ago
This is false. I frequently travel to Bulgaria and Japan. My language remains in English in all products.
- sulam 7y ago
  True for me. I (used to) travel in various parts of Europe regularly and got Google (and the ads) in whatever place I happened to be.
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    When I was wandering around SE Asia I mostly got English, but that was probably because Google hadn't translated things to Khmer/Malay/etc.

plantain 7y ago

And for the bonus - changing your language at the bottom takes you back to the home page rather than staying on the screen you were looking at.

ExactActuation 7y ago
But their engineers passed leetcode so they're super smart /s

fireattack 7y ago

This is an e-store page. It makes sense to follow the region instead of language preferences. The problem is they ideally should separate UI language from region settings, but most sites don't. And they may have some difficulties to do so because they could have specific products that they simply don't have info in languages other than the local one. If you just want to read the description, you can simply change the region below. If you visit https://www.apple.com/jp/shop/ https://www.apple.com/jp/shop/, it only has Japanese too. You can't use JP region store and have it in English at the same time.

scrollaway 7y ago
I live in Belgium; in an area of Belgium that primarily speaks French. I happen to speak French as well (though I'm not originally from Belgium, I am French), but given the places I've lived in my life that's more a coincidence than anything else. I do not speak flemish (be-nl). Yet, my page of the store is in flemish. My browser (a Google browser!) is configured to ask for pages in english, and as a fallback, in french at a lower priority. There is a French version of the store, and it's still not sending it. And a lot of people here in Belgium speak exclusively English. German is also an official language in the country, though only actively spoken in a small part of it. (Map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium) I have no obvious way of changing the language, other than a flag which rather points to changing the region. Turns out, in the region picker (https://store.google.com/regionpicker https://store.google.com/regionpicker), "Belgium French" is a region, separate from "Flemish". When I click "Belgium French", a warning appears. In Flemish. In other words, almost everything about language that store page can get wrong, it does get wrong.
- fireattack 7y ago
  > a warning appears. In Flemish. No, it will appear in two languages, top one being your current region/language, and bottom being your target region/language. So in your case, it should show in nl-BE and fr-BE. Here is a screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/ICwIgxH.png https://i.imgur.com/ICwIgxH.png
7y ago

satysin 7y ago

I always wondered wtf the browsers language setting is for. Can a website not query this for the preferred language rather than make a language decision based on an IP address geo lookup? I am English, my browsers language order is to set English (UK) then English (generic). No foreign languages. However I live in France and if I visit a site it will give me a French version due to my location rather than the language set within the browser. I (apparently wrongly) assumed saying I want content in English would mean the website would query what language the user wants and then send that. Could someone explain what the browser language preference is for?

ubercow13 7y ago
That is what it's for, it's sent in the request header to every site you visit. It's just that not many sites honour it.
kevincox 7y ago
It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem which is incredibly frustrating, I wish websites would start to respect it so users start to configure their browser properly. Users don't configure it (and quite possibly don't know how) so many websites ignore it. Many websites ignore it so it isn't that useful to learn how to configure it.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  On my sites, the URL parameters wins. For example, when the user is explicitly changing a page's language. #2 is the site language cookie from a previous visit. If that fails, #3 is the language the browser requests. If all those fail, English, because it is the most common language the company uses internally. In our user testing, we run into a lot of situations where the computer's primary user, and the person who set it up, are a child, who speaks English. But our site is more geared toward their parents, who often will speak the language of their homeland. For this reason, I make it stupidly easy to change languages, and we have a policy that ALL content has to be translated into English, Spanish, and Chinese, which covers 99.8% of our customers. You don't find out these sorts of things through modern "telemetry" gathering and such current methods of testing. You find these things out by going into the field and watching your customers use your products. But interacting with wetware is beneath people in the SV bubble.

odiroot 7y ago

> Please Google, just because my browser is in Berlin, that doesn't mean I speak German. I'd like to look at your product. I might even be interested. But I can't understand what you're telling me. Interesting. I'm in the same situation but I do speak German (as a third language) and it didn't even click with me at first the website is indeed in German.

moeffju 7y ago

Because Google is still really bad at e-commerce and doesn't distinguish content language from locale and local law. You should be seeing the store in your preferred language, asking for your locale's address format, and following German trade law. But alas, you are in Germany, you get the full German experience. Also nobody really looks at accept language headers anymore, I feel.

mywittyname 7y ago
> Also nobody really looks at accept language headers anymore, I feel. Which is funny, because Google is always coming up with better, more effective ways to track users.

dang 7y ago

(This comment was posted when the URL was https://store.google.com/product/pixel_buds https://store.google.com/product/pixel_buds. Since changed.)