Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

What's with the language detection on this site?

I've set my browser languages to "English (US)" first, and "Dutch" second. Instead of showing me the English-language version of the site, I get an absolutely atrocious auto-translation into Dutch instead (barely intelligible; way worse than Google Translate would produce).

Why are you even looking at my language preferences if you don't respect my preference, of getting English first? And maybe don't do secondary languages if you haven't done a tiny bit of quality assurance on the translation?




Likely a mismatch of the type of English, if the site treats only EN-US (or EN-UK) as english and hasn't included the other, which would just be a mistake.

Then it might switch to your second preference. Alternatively if your device OS is set to dutch, or have some language system like a virtual keyboard or input manager set to dutch, the site might look at that over the user-agent? Very odd choice if any of those.


I'm on an Android phone in the US and got Chinese. I do have a Chinese keyboard installed, maybe that could have something to do with it.


I confirm, also poor quality translation for Italian.


could be location based if you’re in the netherlands?


Fair guess, but I'm not actually in the Netherlands, and not in a Dutch speaking country at all.


I'm in the Netherlands and it gave it to me in English.


Interestingly I'm in the US and got it in Dutch. And yes, the translation is indeed atrocious.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: