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?
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.
I thought you were trying to convince us not to use flags
I’m not saying it’s a good idea, i just see it a lot. Maybe I’m only paying attention to this in Europe, where it’s a bit more clear-cut, rather than tracking down population data to select a template option on a website for something like a cafe menu.