[patrick_haply]

> The main roadblock is the current lack of a way to ask the visitor for her language of choice in a way that does not involve words nor country flags

The whole point of the blog was that the browser already has asked the user that question in the sense that it defaults to the system language setting, i.e. the first things you do on a computer when you open it for the first time.

> but even a partial success is better than having an automated way force a broken choice upon the human visiting the website.

I don't understand. What you're proposing as a solution (asking visitors their language on first entry) is essentially the fallback scenario for guessing incorrectly.

I try to think of the number of different websites I visit and thinking of every single one asking me for a language preference makes me feel not good about using the web. Right now, the worst case scenario is when chrome automatically detects that the website doesn't match my language and gives me a popup asking me if I want to translate.

[coding123]

I definitely agree with you here, the first 2 nano-seconds of the article says to use the language header. I thought everyone already did that! :) Even if that metric isn't perfect, I don't know any browser that doesn't let you change that. Further, if it's a user preference to quickly see a website in a different language, get this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quick-language-swi...

[Manishearth]

IIRC it's the browsers language, not the system language. Might be wrong here.

[patrick_haply]

Just looking through the Chrome settings, I get linked to this help article: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/173424

> You can set Chrome to show all settings and menus in the language you want. This option is only available on Windows and Chromebook computers. > On Mac or Linux? Chrome will automatically display in the default system language for your computer.

Obviously it's different for different OS and browser combos, but the important thing I think is that it's a browser setting and not something that needs to be configured on every site.

[soneil]

I was playing with this today: at least on OSX, I couldn't find a browser that reasonably handled "I speak more than one language comfortably" out of the box (eg, using the OS settings).

Safari: sends the primary OS/environment language, and nothing else. (the OS allows for a weighted list of multiple languages, Safari honours only the primary language). There is no configuration option for this.

Chrome: sends the primary OS/environment language, then en_US, then en. If you had a second preference that wasn't english (eg Belgium, Switzerland, etc), tough. It is atleast configurable (if you look hard enough)

Firefox: entirely ignores the OS environment; uses the localization you downloaded. But is also configurable.

[Manishearth]

What I love about Firefox in this space is that it lets you configure fonts per-language, which is important because default fonts are often not that great.

I've never found sites that actually use Accept-Language properly, so I care as much if that works well.