[Algemarin]

> The UX was not great... not to mention that it was mostly in Korean. I had a lot of trouble. They didn't strike me as the most professional operation..

What does the seemingly very common-sense fact that a South Korean app was "mostly"(?) in Korean have to do with the UX or with it not being "professional"?

What language were you expecting the South Korean app to be in, French?

[jszymborski]

Surely there's no obligation to internationalize your app, but taxis are commonly used by tourists so you'd imagine it would be a good business decision.

[throwaway2037]

What percentage of online taxi rides are booked by tourists? I would guess less than 1%. "[I]t would be a good business decision": I disagree.

[smabie]

Well maybe more people would book taxi rides if they added translation..

[lurking_swe]

multi language support is pretty standard in many popular apps. it’s not even that hard.

Imagine supporting the most common language in the world. CRAZY right?

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/supporting-m...

[TillE]

Surely not the most popular language among tourists in South Korea, who would be mostly from Japan, China, etc.

[lurking_swe]

that’s a fair point. in that case, why not support chinese, japanese, etc?

my point is it seems like good business sense. strange they haven’t done this.

[doyoulikecheese]

The subway station notification is spoken in Korean and English.

[bal00ns]

The common language most often used when people from Japan, China, or South Korea visit each other’s countries is English. All three groups of people are more likely to know English than either of the other two languages. The same can be said for the remaining group that doesn’t include people from those three countries.

[kevintb]

Majority of tourists to Korea do not speak English. You’re really thinking from an American bias there.

[Algemarin]

> Imagine supporting the 2nd most popular language in the world. CRAZY right?

Why are you fixating on supporting the 2nd most popular language, shouldn't it support the 1st most popular language first? Or why not jump straight to the 3rd?

[lurking_swe]

i meant most common, was an error on my part.

also, if you add internationalization support for 1 language in your app, it’s trivial (these days) to add other languages. My point is they should just add support for other languages, like chinese, japanese, english, etc.

More users = more money?

[permanent]

just so u know, kakaotalk does exist in multiple languages. feels like this whole thread is based on a false assumption

>Kakaotalk is in English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Vietnamese (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kakaotalk/id362057947)

[theultdev]

Have you actually used it?

I used it earlier this year in Korea, although it did have a hard to get to setting to change your language, many many things were still in Korean.

It is very difficult to navigate, but I asked for help and a native was able to figure it out.

Still more usable than Google Maps though, which will only give you a not so good train schedule. No walking directions at all.

[devbent]

I've seen tons of American made apps from large companies that show bits of English here and there when switched to another language.

Localization is hard, even for companies that spend a lot of time and effort on it.

It isn't just string replacements!

[shiroiushi]

>Still more usable than Google Maps though, which will only give you a not so good train schedule. No walking directions at all.

That's interesting, because Google Maps here in Japan is absolutely fantastic: train schedules are always correct (and updated with delays etc.), walking directions are good, etc. I guess having a big office here in Tokyo is a big part of this.

[sWW26]

I think your talking about a different app, KakaoMap, which you're right isn't totally localised. KakaoTalk is though.

[lurking_swe]

happy to be proven wrong! Cheers

[PenguinCoder]

> multi language support ... it’s not even that hard.

Can you elaborate on how easy it is, please? Say for a web application or a native Linux application?

[nilsherzig]

The translating part is by far the hardest. But there are services to organize a crowd sourced translations of your app / service.

Booth android and iOS app building frameworks will try to force you into using variables for every rendered string (allowing you to change them easily and in one place - f.ex. based on user / device settings).

[voxic11]

Uber, an American rideshare company, supports a large number of languages including Korean.

[astonex]

Because Uber operates is many countries.

[kiwijamo]

They don't operate in Korea but they do provide Korean translations which seems to suggest they consider inbound tourists as a target market. It is quite telling the Korean apps do not.

[seoulbigchris]

Unless it's changed very recently, Uber still operates in Korea, but only for foreigners.

[SuperNinKenDo]

Uber attempted to operate in Korea and failed. At that point keeping a Korean translation would have been a simple matter of maintaining and updating it for the small returns that it brought in, coupled with the knowledge that simply maintaining a Korean translation for their vastly more entrenched service ensured no chance of competition from one of the few non-American firms to succeed in the same space as them.

[himinlomax]

An app in French would be easy to comprehend for an English speaker.

To wit: une appli en Français serait facile à comprendre pour un anglophone.