I’ve been using personal computer since my mom bought a 386 that came with MS Dos. From then I’ve been using English command line interfaces, playing games with dialogue and interface written in English. I’ve also gotten used to English phrasing when it comes to user interfaces. I praise the recent additions of social applications and web applications in general to support my mother tongue. However, it does not mean that I feel comfortable using a Dutch interface, which brings me to the point of writing this blogpost.

Locale is not language, and telling me that I prefer a Dutch interface to an English one because of my location is like telling me that I prefer to drive a Dutch car to an American one.

Webapplications – Language settings

My cumbersome quest to return all my applications to English started when I first installed Windows XP. Because I live in the Netherlands, all computers are shipped with a Dutch version of Windows XP.  I understand the basics behind it, and I don’t complain. Recently however, I’ve had a hard time with browser based applications deciding to switch to dutch without asking me whether I prefer Dutch to English. I understand that Google automatically switches to Dutch if no cookie is set or if I’m not logged in with my user account, and I have manually switched to English myself. One annoying feature of Facebook though, is that it decided to automatically switch to my account Dutch while I’ve been using Facebook for over a year in english.

Instead of forcing me to use Dutch, why not give me a message, which I can disable, when I log into Facebook that Facebook is currently available in Dutch? Besides the obvious agitation of switching back to English, presume that I was an english businessman living in the Netherlands? I had to go through the trouble of changing my language settings in a language that is not my own. Google solves this by doing exactly what I said by adding a ‘hint’ telling me that Google is available in Dutch when I’m logged in with an account that has the language settings to English.

General – Locale versus Language settings

The problem drags along a bit further with otherwise so obvious choices done wrong. My roommate plays games online on his Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 dashboard provides two options: changing your language and changing your locale. By setting the locale the Xbox Live network determines whether you’re going to play against people from the US (by setting your locale to US) or the Netherlands (by setting it to the Netherlands). The language determines the language of your dashboard, in this case set to English (US). Some programmer thought he was smart by determining the language by the locale. The result? Every game that has a Dutch version is actually now displayed in Dutch. Obviously a lot of hardcore gamers don’t like reading and hearing dutch dialogue or being confronted with a dutch user interface. Besides feeling flat-out wrong, dialogue translated to Dutch just sounds bad. Turning his Locale to US means that he has to suffer from bad lag while playing games. The solution? Set the locale to the UK (English interface); luckily  the Netherlands are right next to the UK so it’s basically lag free.

The second example is actually more based on preferance. My roommate is also a programmer and he started to work on a Flash game made with Flexworks. Flexworks is an amazing framework for Flash. The weirdest thing happened while compiling, Flexworks actually spit out compiling errors in Dutch! Of course, this is conventional since his locale is set to Dutch and his operating system is in Dutch, but have you ever read compiling errors in Dutch? They’re gibberish! Any programmer knows English, hell, their code is in English. What software developer ever thought of translating compiling errors? On a side note, he managed to change the language, but it turned out as well that he first had to get rid of all the errors before the errors would actually turn into English again, talk about wasting productivity!

Conclusion

I appreciate internationalization of applications and the internet, but before offering it work it out in a way that makes sense. I will always change my settings to English and if I’ve been using applications in English and suddenly there is a Dutch version available: give me the option. Don’t confuse locale and language, they’re two different things. And who ever thought that either me or my room mate would like to stare at ambigious Dutch compiling errors?