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"The local language" is already a problem. There are countries where there are multiple local/national languages! What does Google's homepage look like in Belgi

"The local language" is already a problem. There are countries where there are multiple local/national languages! What does Google's homepage look like in Belgium? > Mac running with English and 24-hour clocks The UK locale (probably Ireland too) has provided a 24 hour clock in Windows for decades. Although thinking about it, little-endian dates (11 March, 11/03/2022) would probably annoy Americans as much as mixed-endian dates annoy me.

scrollaway 5y ago
Am in Belgium. Google keeps serving me pages in Dutch. I don’t speak Dutch nor do the majority of people in my city / area. I speak French. And I don’t want results in French, I want results in English. Google thinks they known better - they do not.
- Foobar8568 5y ago
  It's not just Google, all of them, Switzerland /German by default including the information to switch language every where
- kolinko 5y ago
  If you're logged into a Google account, you can change the language in settings. (I'm in Poland, and I force Google to be in english this way)
  - thih9 5y ago
    The original article mentions that, as well as some shortcomings of this method.
- laurent92 5y ago
  The trick is results in French are extremely bad quality, tech articles are dumbed down, tutorials in French lose nuance, and, well, good luck finding Hacker News in French. It was a revolution for me when I gained access to the English web, it’s the origin of the documents! I want results in English because the quality is higher in English!
  - yodsanklai 5y ago
    >The trick is results in French are extremely bad quality It depends. It is definitely the case for tech but not for everything. For philosophy, science, movie reviews, cooking, and of course anything related to French culture, there's a lot of high quality content.
    - tharkun__ 5y ago
      Disclaimer: Choosing to reply here for "reasons" but there's lots of siblings I could've chosen. Reading comments so far and the article I think we're mixing up many different use cases and choices. If I set my browser to English, that means I want the interface language to definitely be English. Do no serve me the interface in Japanese just because I'm in Japan. I won't even be able to find the "Change language here" dropdown ... Now search results are a different thing. If I type something into www.google.com while being on US soil with en-us as my language setting that is in French, isn't it obvious that I might primarily be served French language content and that is what I want too? While the interface of Google is still in English? Or vice versa? If I type an English language query into www.google.fr while fr-fr is my language setting, I expect worldwide results in English, while my interface is still in French. Sure, restaurant name search results I might want sorted differently based on location and that's a good thing overall, but leave my interface language alone!
  - porknubbins 5y ago
    This was one disillusionment of finally becoming fluent in a foreign language. I had kind of assumed all major languages would have similarly sized, disjoint bodies of content worth reading but English dominates everything, especially if the info is of any practical use, and only for particular cultural issues do we need to read in another language.
    - amaccuish 5y ago
      I think I was pretty lucky with the languages I chose. Whilst I find little good French content, the German and Russian webs are pretty well stocked.
piyh 5y ago
2022-March-11 is the master date format. No US injected ambiguity and no chance for misintrepretation.
- FabHK 5y ago
  2022-03-11, actually. It's an ISO standard, has no ambiguity, is more language agnostic, and alphabetical sort coincides with chronological sort. https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    i use 2022-03mar-11 or 202203mar11 it most importantly sorts properly when used at the front of a filename, and it's surprisingly easy to read; and in context I'm mostly looking at the month-date which can be picked off the end, "march 11" which is how we say dates in English anyway time of day can be appended without messing with the collation (usually i put a space)
    - onpensionsterm 5y ago
      >"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.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        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.
        NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
        I think you're missing the point. In the UK, for example, 2/2 is "the second of February", not "February second".
pbhjpbhj 5y ago
Aw man, Google UK's search "tools" feature doesn't understand UK nor ISO date formats. Such a strange choice to make.
- Blahah 5y ago
  Works fine with the `before:` and `after:` filters for me

scrollaway 5y ago

Am in Belgium. Google keeps serving me pages in Dutch. I don’t speak Dutch nor do the majority of people in my city / area. I speak French. And I don’t want results in French, I want results in English. Google thinks they known better - they do not.

Foobar8568 5y ago
It's not just Google, all of them, Switzerland /German by default including the information to switch language every where
kolinko 5y ago
If you're logged into a Google account, you can change the language in settings. (I'm in Poland, and I force Google to be in english this way)
- thih9 5y ago
  The original article mentions that, as well as some shortcomings of this method.
laurent92 5y ago
The trick is results in French are extremely bad quality, tech articles are dumbed down, tutorials in French lose nuance, and, well, good luck finding Hacker News in French. It was a revolution for me when I gained access to the English web, it’s the origin of the documents! I want results in English because the quality is higher in English!
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  >The trick is results in French are extremely bad quality It depends. It is definitely the case for tech but not for everything. For philosophy, science, movie reviews, cooking, and of course anything related to French culture, there's a lot of high quality content.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    Disclaimer: Choosing to reply here for "reasons" but there's lots of siblings I could've chosen. Reading comments so far and the article I think we're mixing up many different use cases and choices. If I set my browser to English, that means I want the interface language to definitely be English. Do no serve me the interface in Japanese just because I'm in Japan. I won't even be able to find the "Change language here" dropdown ... Now search results are a different thing. If I type something into www.google.com while being on US soil with en-us as my language setting that is in French, isn't it obvious that I might primarily be served French language content and that is what I want too? While the interface of Google is still in English? Or vice versa? If I type an English language query into www.google.fr while fr-fr is my language setting, I expect worldwide results in English, while my interface is still in French. Sure, restaurant name search results I might want sorted differently based on location and that's a good thing overall, but leave my interface language alone!
- porknubbins 5y ago
  This was one disillusionment of finally becoming fluent in a foreign language. I had kind of assumed all major languages would have similarly sized, disjoint bodies of content worth reading but English dominates everything, especially if the info is of any practical use, and only for particular cultural issues do we need to read in another language.
  - amaccuish 5y ago
    I think I was pretty lucky with the languages I chose. Whilst I find little good French content, the German and Russian webs are pretty well stocked.

piyh 5y ago

2022-March-11 is the master date format. No US injected ambiguity and no chance for misintrepretation.

FabHK 5y ago
2022-03-11, actually. It's an ISO standard, has no ambiguity, is more language agnostic, and alphabetical sort coincides with chronological sort. https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
- fsckboy 5y ago
  i use 2022-03mar-11 or 202203mar11 it most importantly sorts properly when used at the front of a filename, and it's surprisingly easy to read; and in context I'm mostly looking at the month-date which can be picked off the end, "march 11" which is how we say dates in English anyway time of day can be appended without messing with the collation (usually i put a space)
  - onpensionsterm 5y ago
    >"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.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      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.
      - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
        I think you're missing the point. In the UK, for example, 2/2 is "the second of February", not "February second".

pbhjpbhj 5y ago

Aw man, Google UK's search "tools" feature doesn't understand UK nor ISO date formats. Such a strange choice to make.

Blahah 5y ago
Works fine with the `before:` and `after:` filters for me