

Ask HN: Do people care about flags when selecting a site language? - DavidHogan

I'm working on a site that supports multiple languages, and we are using a flag icon to indicate the current language. The language selection dropdown will have both the flag and the name of the language.<p>I would love to get your opinions on the following questions, as well as any relative experiences you can share.<p>1. Is a US citizen likely to be annoyed if the icon for English is the British flag? (assuming we don't support both US and UK English languages)<p>2. Should both US English and UK English be supported?<p>3. Would a Taiwanese person be annoyed if the Flag for Chinese Traditional was China's flag?<p>4. Would it be better to not have flags? If so, what is a good way to indicate that the language can be changed?<p>5. Would a non-english speaking user recognize a dropdown list control with the word 'English' on it and realize that this how the language can be changed?
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jm4
Lose the flags. I'd venture to guess all of the languages you're supporting
are used in multiple countries so it doesn't make much sense. Besides, it's
confusing to users anyway. A Latin American user is going to be looking for
Spanish- not the flag of Spain. You're better off displaying the options as
text in the respective language.

I saw someone else mention that using flags is a common enough pattern that
it's acceptable. While it may be true that it's a common pattern it's still
one that's ignorant. Maintaining a website in multiple languages is very
difficult so you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by not properly
leading users to their preferred language.

[edit]

There was a discussion last week about using IP geolocation for determining
language that might be of some relevance:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=741093>

~~~
justlearning
I also want to add: in addition to losing the flags, you may want to show the
target user's language as the default. eg: if primary target users are
spanish, load your site in spanish.

dell,creative websites have a simple - "change your country". perhaps that
would suit you?

------
shorbaji
I would say do not use flags unless you don't mind being dragged into world
politics :-)

I can give you the example of Arabic that is the national language across 22
countries. Which flag would you choose there?

The thing is flags come loaded with nationalistic sentiment. You will be
dragging yourself into the middle of many political conflicts worldwide.
Taiwan/China is one but you will also have Israel/Palestine, Kosovo/Albania
and likely others. Users from one national tendency will quickly point out how
their flag should be there.

Of course if you are only supporting a few languages this may not be a big
issue.

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mooism2
Flags don't mean languages. Don't use a flag to mean a language.

You don't need to explicitly indicate what language the page is in, because
the text on the page is in that language. What you do need to do is indicate
--- without words --- that the drop down box is for selecting a different
language.

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idlewords
Apart from all the very wise arguments already mentioned in the thread, flags
also tend to turn your UI into angry fruit salad.

------
rdouble
I built this: translate.songbirdnest.com

You don't see flags on the site, but in the language package you download,
there are flags. I can't remember if we used to display the flags on the site
- it's been redesigned since I left.

1\. US citizens are not annoyed by the UK flag. As someone else pointed out,
if someone in the US sees a British flag they will probably think the site is
not for them. I don't think it works the other way around since the USA
dominates international media.

2\. We supported US and UK English. The UK people loved this and it was one of
the first translations we received.

3\. Certain mainland Chinese people are annoyed by Taiwan's existence. Aside
from technical errors and categorizations that were simply wrong, the only
complaints I received were from mainland Chinese people trying to get me to
remove the Taiwanese language pack.

4\. Flags look cool but cause some problems with languages that are spoken in
different countries, or single countries with many languages. Do you really
need Swiss French and France French? Do you need an Indian flag for every
language spoken in India?

I actually did have different language packs for the same language in
different countries. 22 different kinds of Arabic, etc. However, this was a
lot of extra work I made for myself and if I were to do it over again I would
not use flags or tie the languages to countries.

~~~
ErrantX
> We supported US and UK English. The UK people loved this and it was one of
> the first translations we received.

As a brit I can back that up. There's no malice in the feeling but a common
consensus here is that our English is very different from the US version (coff
the first coff :D) so it's nice to see it recognised and supported.

~~~
foldr
Speaking as another Brit I really don't get it. Leaving aside differences in
pronunciation, the only thing that separates the two dialects is a few minor
spelling/vocabulary differences. I don't remember ever bothering to change
from US to UK English on sites that support both. The one exception might be
if dates are involved, in which case it is confusing to have the US order.

~~~
gstar
Go to the US, and ask for a 'glass of water' anywhere. Honestly, hardly anyone
will get it first time - and usually you have to break down and ask for a
'wadder'.

Same with Butter.

There are some major differences that aren't obvious - us brits tend to be
more flexible with mangling of the pronunciation (because everyone here does),
but in the US they like it their way or the highway, so to speak.

~~~
foldr
I live in the US and that's not really my experience, but I was thinking more
of written communication, where the differences are very small. (I did say
"leaving aside differences in pronunciation.")

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Sapient
While a flag may work for some countries, don't forget that not all countries
have a single official language. Placing a South African flag on your site
would confuse most South Africans as we have 11 official languages (probably a
worst case scenario). But there are plenty of other countries with more than
one widely spoken and/or official language.

------
amr
I worked on many multi-lingual websites and always used the name of the
language in its native form (Arabic => عربي, Greek => Ελληνική, etc ) to offer
language selection. It works very well for me. I agree with others who advise
against using flags for this.

~~~
chrismear
Strongly seconded. And don't do what this site did, and only list the
alternative languages in the language that is currently selected:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrismear/3330007381/>

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thenduks
The flags don't help and simply based on the number of questions you have
about the subject it's obvious that it's not clear cut how to handle the
issue. Drop them.

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nfnaaron
I agree, a specific flag does not necessarily mean a specific language, and
it's unnecessarily provocative.

However, flags in general are associated with the idea of language.

To show that a dropdown means "choose a language" you could put a cluster of
neutral, solid-colored flags, a different color for each flag. In the dropdown
include the standard country code along with the language name rendered in its
own language.

As for what language to start with, either: \- "your" language, or the
predominate language that the site is developed and operated in, or \- geo-
location, or \- what makes sense to you.

But don't expect "foreign" speakers to speak the default language just because
they happen to be reading your site from a particular country.

That said, I think most people these days can find the "choose a language"
knob, so just try not be rude and you'll be OK.

------
Semiapies
Why not just a menu of the written-out names of the languages, with each
language name in its own language?

"English", "Deutsch", "Português", etc.

Depending on how many languages you're supporting, you might just make it a
short list of links up in the header, at least until one is selected.

------
DavidHogan
Hi all,

I've discovered another interesting approach out there - show the user their
own flag (via geoip) strictly as a icon indicating that the language can be
changed. Next to that goes a menu with all the supported languages listed (in
their native character sets). As far as I can tell this solves all the issues
I know of:

1\. The flag icon provides the user a hint that they can change language 2\.
Geo politics isn't involved 3\. The list of options doesn't get stupidly large

Anyone see an issue with this approach?

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gr366
While mooism2 is correct and flags don't mean languages, I think it's a common
enough pattern on web sites that you can just choose one or the other (USA or
UK) for English. But you should then be consistent with spelling.

It depends on how you want the site to be perceived. As an American, if I see
the British flag next to an English language selection, I'm not offended, but
I do feel like the site is targeted more toward European users.

------
xiaoma
> _Would a Taiwanese person be annoyed if the Flag for Chinese Traditional was
> China's flag?_

Yes. Identity is _the_ single biggest issue in Taiwanese politics. It would be
very difficult to get any more offensive than showing a PRC flag for Taiwan.
Don't even go there.

------
AhmadH
I find two letter codes more usable:

EN English IT Italian AR Arabic

Of course you can separate them from the language name by a different font or
background color.

------
jacquesm
If you have flags that might 'offend' then just add the other flag as well and
use the same settings.

~~~
DavidHogan
Yeah, we could do that, although there are a lot of countries that speak
English but people seem to either use the US or UK variant as far as I can
tell.

~~~
jacquesm
The differences are mostly in the 'locale' issues, especially dates. I got
around that by doing 'Jan 1st 2009', in stead of the strictly numerical
options.

The language issues are less of a problem, they're minor spelling issues such
as 'colour' vs 'color'. I never had any complaints about those.

Australians and Canadians have long ago dropped most of their English spelling
details, Americans don't care too much from what I can see. Some very purist
English folks have sent an email or two (one about 'gray' vs 'grey', go
figure...) but for the most part it is just whatever works.

There is a lot of tolerance for this in end users, they understand that you
have to make choices.

Here was an interesting thread on this not that long ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=741093>

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
It's not quite true that Canadians have dropped British spelling. Careful
writers still follow British conventions, but no Canadian will be bothered by
US spelling on a site that is directed at an American or international
audience. Some people will notice and mind if the site appears to be a
Canadian site targeted at Canadians (e.g. a Canadian government site).

~~~
jacquesm
Well, I've lived there in total for about 5 years and _nobody_ in all that
time ever remarked on this, but I did notice that older Canadians tend to
favour (...) British-English spelling, the younger generation is much more US-
English slanted.

Agreed on the governmental stuff, that's where the big differences are, but
then again, those have to be bi-lingual anyway.

------
vaksel
why not just use geolocate and give people in USA the USA flag for English,
and people in Britain the British flag for English etc

