Comments on: Why you should use English versions of your OS and other software

By: WarsawExpat

WarsawExpat — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:02:24 +0000

Hi there,

Just found your website via typeit via antimoon.

As an American trying to learn Polish, I actually insisted on installing the Polish version of Windows 7.

A new OS in a new language = good times!

By: Zhao

Zhao — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 03:10:59 +0000

Hi, I forget about this comment for a long time. I don’t know how you searched for Chinese pages, but I search Chinese pages of “nVidia” in google.com.uk (the second option below search bar), it returns 12,800,000 results, and that is about 1/4 of English results (58,200,000). Plus, indeed there is a Chinese translation for nVidia, “英伟达”, but people don’t use as often as the original name (~2,540,000 search results).

I am trying to say that as long as the community is large enough, the power is not negligible. Moreover, if some software are used more within that community (e.g. ssh software to against GFW in China), sometimes there are more results than in English, and not to mention the convenience reading your native language.

By: czesiu

czesiu — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 20:11:40 +0000

This post reminds me the polish translation of last.fm musical compatibilty meter:

English
Your musical compatibility with … is Very Low

Polish
Twoje porównanie z użytkownikiem … wypada: Fatalnie

My translation back to english:
Compared to user … you really suck

Feel free to provide more close translation, I hope I’ve got the general sense right :)

just noticed: it seems google translate now gets it wrong too
http://translate.google.pl/#pl|en|Twoje%20por%C3%B3wnanie%20z%20u%C5%BCytkownikiem%0A
while
Twoje = Your
porównanie = comparison
użytkownikiem = user

By: Srikanth

Srikanth — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:06:47 +0000

We can always use google translator http://google.com/translate or babelfish.yahoo.com for getting the translation. But i accept it may not be that exact to the english version error message and that helpful.

By: Dennis Gorelik

Dennis Gorelik — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:15:32 +0000

@Niko Schwarz: why German? It’s not even in top 3 most popular world languages.

By: dontWannaPounceBut

dontWannaPounceBut — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:50:11 +0000

@Niko You see, I love my native language too. But having everything in English makes sense. Its easily the most commonly spoken language on Earth. Keyboards are designed with English in mind. There are many language scripts for which keyboards are perhaps merely painful adaptations – nothing close to being ideal input devices for those.

Perhaps English is already most common language used on internet and in software interfaces too. So, why not take advantage of that fact instead of wasting resources based on petty differences?

By: Tomasz

Tomasz — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:59:21 +0000

Google Groups returns only 472,000 results for “nVidia” in Chinese (simplified and traditional combined). That’s still 1/36 of the English figure. I am assuming here that “nVidia” would not be transliterated into hanzi. Please correct if wrong.

By: Niko Schwarz

Niko Schwarz — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:27:41 +0000

I couldn’t agree more with your argument. Your argument, however, only explains why having everything in one language is good, not why that one language needs to be English.

I hereby propose publishing all of your software henceforth only in – German.

By: wildchild

wildchild — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:13:39 +0000

Agree with you. Also:

- Lots of localized open source software sucks (Gnome, KDE for example)

- In applications like Photoshop it’s easy to find required menu item or effect.

I am also using english UI of my cell phone :)

By: Jorge

Jorge — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:02:37 +0000

If you know English in a proficient enough level I don’t see a reason not to use all your software in English. If you share a computer with your family you can have the same software in your native language for them.

P.S. English is the language is the of the internet anyways, so I rather use English instead of my native language.