This always annoys me. I land on a site that’s in a language I don’t understand (say, Dutch), and I want to switch to something else. I open the language selector and… it’s all in Dutch too. So instead of Germany/Deutchland, Romania/România, Great Britain, etc, I get Duitsland and Roemenië and Groot-Brittannië…

How does that make any sense? If I don’t speak the language, how am I supposed to know what Roemenië even is? In some situations, it could be easier to figure it out, but in some, not so much. “German” in Polish is “Niemiecki”… :|

Wouldn’t it be way more user-friendly to show the names in their native language, like Deutsch, Română, English, Polski, etc?

Is there a reason this is still a thing, or is it just bad UX that nobody bothers to fix?

  • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
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    13 days ago

    Flags don’t represent languages and therefore shouldn’t be used to represent languages.

    • hansolo@lemmy.today
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      12 days ago

      Typically they’re used for the counties where the language originated.

      UK for English France for French Japan for Japanese Spain for Spanish Russia for Russian Portugal for Portuguese

      • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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        12 days ago

        No, typically they aren’t, and if they do it’s a bad idea. Only 4% of L1 Portuguese speakers live in Portugal. There is 4 languages in Switzerland. German originated in at least 3 countries. USisans will throw a hissy fit if they will have to click on anything but their favourite star spangled banner for their language.
        It’s a mess.

        • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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          12 days ago

          USisans will throw a hissy fit if they will have to click on anything but their favourite star spangled banner for their language.

          I thought you were trying to convince us not to use flags