3 ms·

One of my favorite observations about forms that are in Arabic and English (or any left-to-right and right-to-left language pair) is that you don't need to pick

One of my favorite observations about forms that are in Arabic and English (or any left-to-right and right-to-left language pair) is that you don't need to pick one language as the primary language. The trick is to put the English on the left, a blank field in the middle, and the Arabic on the right. This way an English speaker will naturally read the form as an English form with the Arabic translation off to the right. But an Arabic reader will naturally read the form as an Arabic form with an English translation off to the left. Neither language is dominant. Contrast this with a form in English and Spanish, where you need to put the text all on the left and decide which language goes on top.

NhanH 4y ago
Your text inputs still need to flow either left-to-right or right-to-left though? In which use case would this be useful?
- AdamN 4y ago
  Layout on an airline magazine where the left side of the page is English and the right side is an RTL language like Hebrew or Arabic.
- 8organicbits 4y ago
  If we're talking about an HTML text input field, you can use `dir=auto`. Other tools should have similar features. This approach is also very common on paper, which naturally flows in the correct direction. https://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_dir.asp https://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_dir.asp https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_global_attributes_dir https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_global_attributes_dir Edit: oh use case? Imagine a PDF form you'd like someone to fill out, or a page that may get printed. You could create two forms and let the person filling out the form pick their language, but the person processing the form may prefer to read the form in the other language.
- IanCal 4y ago
  > Your text inputs still need to flow either left-to-right or right-to-left though? In which use case would this be useful? Anything that doesn't require input - particularly printed ones where you can't just swap with a button. Signs, menus, etc.

NhanH 4y ago

Your text inputs still need to flow either left-to-right or right-to-left though? In which use case would this be useful?

AdamN 4y ago
Layout on an airline magazine where the left side of the page is English and the right side is an RTL language like Hebrew or Arabic.
8organicbits 4y ago
If we're talking about an HTML text input field, you can use `dir=auto`. Other tools should have similar features. This approach is also very common on paper, which naturally flows in the correct direction. https://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_dir.asp https://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_global_dir.asp https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_global_attributes_dir https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_global_attributes_dir Edit: oh use case? Imagine a PDF form you'd like someone to fill out, or a page that may get printed. You could create two forms and let the person filling out the form pick their language, but the person processing the form may prefer to read the form in the other language.
IanCal 4y ago
> Your text inputs still need to flow either left-to-right or right-to-left though? In which use case would this be useful? Anything that doesn't require input - particularly printed ones where you can't just swap with a button. Signs, menus, etc.