I can’t believe nobody has done this list yet. I mean, there is one about names, one about time and many others on other topics, but not one about languages yet (except one honorable mention that comes close). So, here’s my attempt to list all the misconceptions and prejudices I’ve come across in the course of my long and illustrious career in software localisation and language technology. Enjoy – and send me your own ones!

  • darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 days ago

    Geolocation is an accurate way to predict the user’s language.

    Now that’s a pet peeve of mine, a bizarre belief surprisingly often held by people, who must be oblivious to the existence of tourism.

      • darklamer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 days ago

        Now there you have one more pet peeve of mine, language preference settings that pretend that all language versions are equal, that shitty translations aren’t abundant. If the original text is in a language that I can read then I want the original, not some shitty translation. It shouldn’t be that hard!

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      This. When I was in Mexico on my honeymoon, Google kept redirecting me to their .mx version of Google; despite my inability to read Spanish.

      • Lucy :3@feddit.org
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        4 days ago

        And I always want the english version instead of the german version, despite me being german. Literally only google fucks that up. Every other site, even the small local german Uni website or the canteens meal site, respects my browsers setting. Google does not, and serves me german.

    • Kissaki@programming.dev
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      4 days ago

      I hate when apps use my number formatting setting to determine display language - despite Windows having a display language as well. Even Qt does (did?) that.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 days ago

      yup I too remember getting YouTube ads in Hungarian when I was there as a tourist - despite not understanding Hungarian at all and watching videos only in other languages, they really ought to know that