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?

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[–] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No, flags for languages are a bad thing.

  • If you put a Swiss flag, what language would it be? (They speak 4 languages in Switzerland)
  • What flag would you use for English? The UK? The US?

More details here: https://localizejs.com/articles/why-using-flag-icons-can-confuse-your-users

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I mean, if they insist on everything being in Dutch then at least include a flag. If you're going this deep on the UK obviously having the list in the native language is preferable.

    The reason for the list above being all in Dutch might be because it's a list of countries, not a list of languages. (I speak some Dutch)

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