Rather than defaulting to English, why not default to whatever the browser's OS is set to? At least for JS apps, there's navigator.languages, and there's an Accept-Language header for both language and locale for standard server-rendered plain ol' websites.
Geographic location really does seem like the worst possible option to use.
As someone who develops multi-lingual web sites, I can tell you this doesn't work.
It should work, but it doesn't. We test with actual users in their home environments, and... people are messy.
- The vast majority of our users accept the default language (English) when setting up their computers, even if they don't speak English.
- In households where the parents are immigrants, very often the children set up the computer, so it's set to English, which is the child's preference, even if the parents don't speak English.
- Poor households often share a phone or a computer, and each person may not speak or prefer the default language that was chosen by the person who set up the computer.
In the idealized world that Silicon Valley imagines where 1 person uses 1 computer with 1 owner and speaks 1 language, it's fine. But in the real world, it's just a mess.
This was in response to a comment chain suggesting that geofencing default language is a bad option, because of how inaccurate it can be.
> - In households where the parents are immigrants, very often the children set up the computer, so it's set to English, which is the child's preference, even if the parents don't speak English.
I fail to see how any default language setting will help in this scenario, assuming they've immigrated to an English-speaking geographic region.
> - The vast majority of our users accept the default language (English) when setting up their computers, even if they don't speak English.
I suppose this is one scenario where geofencing might work better than OS default language, but then again, based on my experience it's just as likely to be wrong. At least with English it'd be an interface they're accustomed to seeing, and would have better luck finding the website's language selector, rather than something more arbitrary :/
In the scenarios you describe, it's hard to see how geolocation makes things better, as it has all the same problems, except for the "installed in English because didn't change the default" where you now have a chance (but no guarantee) you'll select the correct language.
And unlike configuring the language in the browser, there's no hope geolocation could even possibly work correctly.
>In the idealized world that Silicon Valley imagines where 1 person uses 1 computer with 1 owner and speaks 1 language, it's fine. But in the real world, it's just a mess.
In Silicon Valley geolocation works fine, but it's a terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE idea everywhere else.
Of course it doesn't do much because sites do very stupid things like use geolocation.
I work in an international organization in Czech. The local IT team installs Windows in the local language, then sets it to English (which is fine, mostly). Half of our employees don't speak Czech well and changing weird tools to English is a constant and difficult hassle for those who haven't learned the basic words yet (printer drivers and small open source tools are the worst).
Browser language can be difficult as well. Half of the population is bi- or multilingual.. choosing which language to use for a browser (for me: German or English) affects how well Google Translate works - which I use daily. (Somehow, big American companies don't get the idea that people can live in multiple countries at the same time or speak multiple languages).
That doesn't make sense. If the OS is "set to English", how do programs know to run in Czech?
Anyway, we just install Windows in English. (British English, so the dates appear the right way around and there's a chance of metric measurements.)
Yes, it would be preferable to have the installations in English initially. But we weren't always international and not all of our employees speak English well (this is common for older people - former UDSSR ..., admin staff and people in roles that don't require a college education). There are still legacy tools in Czech, fully Czech teams (who obviously work partially in their native language), a need to work in the local language (procurement, legal topics,..) etc. It's just not economic to completely enforce English.
Growing up, I learned that Czechoslovakia was part of the "Eastern Bloc" and we were never taught much about the individual countries and their peoples. Moving there taught me a lot more about the country and its neighbors' history and culture, and also my own culture.
Although I'm not sure about "Central Europe".
i have no problem ignoring central Europe when people will be consistent about geography especially regarding Austria, but since nobody it's putting Austria in eastern Europe then we have to live with Central Europe, after all Europe ends at Ural, so calling Czechia eastern Europe it's quite a stretch
This term predates the Iron Curtain.
As a silly American, can you explain how you live in multiple countries at the same time? Do you mean you, for example, live in one country and work in another?
Even Berlin, which is pretty far from the Polish border, have commuter trains to Poland. That's right, the Berlin metro ticket will take you to Poland.
My wife is a scientist, so we travel a lot and change places of living. So far, I lived in Russia, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Denmark, and about 2 months in the US.
Now, I have a job with 90% business travel between two countries (but same cities). Have small apartments in both. It is just more economical and comfortable that hotel room living.
There are also often reasons not to completely move to a country, even if it's close (different tax situation, having to switch social security systems which affects your retirement, wanting to stay inside a certain social security systems which requires a place of residence..)
The right solution I think is to make a reasonable guess and then allow the user to control it. None of these guesses are going to work for everybody on their own.