At first, you could get any website in the language of your choice, but as time went by, sites like yahoo and Google opened in Chinese by default, now the same thing is happening with facebook. Does anybody know what’s up?
I’m guessing a lot of people here read and write Chinese more than they do English, and having the default language chinese makes the websites more easily accessible/friendly to their market here. Don’t quote me on that.
If you’re unsure as to the technological part, I’m no guru but the site detects your IP thingy which tells the site you probably speaky Chinese. Then if you don’t speaky chinese, you find the button on the page that changes it to English. Then you bookmark the page and the world is well again.
It’s the first time it has happened with facebook. What bothers me is thaty it’s happening with more and more sites. Don’t get mw wrong, I like Chinese, but when it gets to certain sites, like my bank, I don’t want to see a Chinese character.
Off topic: The misuse of the apostrophe in thread title bugs the ‘ell out o’ me.
Also verbs tend not to have a -y at the end. That suits adjectives more.
I came across the same issue this morning. Frustrating, yeah. Let me know if you actually figure out how to reset the language. Thanks, K.
Here’s how you do it.
On your home page, click on the link immediately to the right of your name, two links to the left of the search window.
Click on the right-most tab.
Pick your language.
What’s up is that designers/developers are finally making it easier for everyone to get websites in the language of their choice. When most people in Taiwan are far more comfortable reading Chinese than English, why should they have to understand English in order to find the language picker and change the language? Far more sensible for these sites to do what they’re doing now: start with one of the main languages for the country the reader’s in, but still offer the chance to change the language.
Didn’t you get one of these notifications?
I didn’t get that notification.
Thanks guys, fixed the problem. But, to those Internet Nazis out there, stop changing my favorites sites into Chinese!
I chose Pirate English for mine. Now I have a list of ‘Mateys ye may know’.
I was shy to say it, but I made the same mistake and then went back to change it to real English(Brit.).
Its a bunch of bollock’s. When one register’s, one assume’s that the droid’s acknowledge ones initial language preference and country. I agree with the misuse of apostraphe’s, too.
[quote=“jimipresley”]Its a bunch of bollock’s. When one register’s, one assume’s that the droid’s acknowledge ones initial language preference and country. I agree with the misuse of apostraphe’s, too.[/quote]You spelt “apostrophe” wrong, you’re(sic) post is otherwise correct.
You rock, Jaboney. A huge thank you.
THANK YOU!
And let me take this opportunity to say I think you have an awesome avatar. 
(I see His-Evilness-the-Apostrophe has been vanquished …so how do you edit thread titles? There are a few in the pets section that I would like to adjust to reflect whether an animal has been adopted or not. A bit off topic… )
… so tempting to write “pet’s section”, but it would actually work both ways 
That’s what I get for posting early on a Saturday morning (the morning after the weekly Taiwan beer fest).
As Jimi said, when you register and tell them that you want your site in English, it’s not “easier” for you if the site then opens in Chinese. That’s not the language of your choice.
They’re not making it easier. They’re assuming that because you live in a country you wish to use that country’s official language, instead of acknowledging what you actually told them. Eleven million American citizens speak no English. Add in the many who prefer to use another language, and assuming something about someone just because of where they happen to be that day is just stupid. It’s like going to sites that tell you which browser you should be using.
The internet is supposed to break down borders, not reinforce them. It’s supposed to make stuff available to anyone anywhere, not just to the ones who want to be pigeon-holed by location. Google Adsense sent me terms and conditions in a language I don’t read because their policy is to apply whatever laws are relevant in the country where you have your bank account. It doesn’t matter if you have never set foot in the country and are not subject to its laws, they’re still going to give you terms and conditions for that jurisdiction. Madness.
It’s ironic that these sites claim to be personalising the advertising they expose you to, but can’t even get their heads around the idea that you are an individual instead of a demographic.
What’s the latest estimate for numbers of people living and working in countries other than the ones they originate from? Must be tens of millions, even hundreds. Probably more than the number of Mac users, but nobody builds websites that only work with IE any more. (Except in TW, of course.)
I have had exactly the same feelings about language settings, I had a lot of problems with MS and Yahoo for a while, pushing me to the Taiwan site. There seems to be no easy way to alter the preferred site or language settings, the best way would be to choose it directly from the browser i.e. the language selection is set as English from the browser which automatically selects your preferred language setting, you’d also have to have a preferred geographic setting too. Then the browser just automatically detects from website home page which version you want.
It’s ironic because for the longest time Facebook has no Chinese site, which potentially lost them 100’s of millions of lost revenue allowing other social networks to grow big enough first and compete.
Mine didnt open by default in Chinese it gave a list of languages you would Like to have it open in.
Yeah, and that works fine as long as the friggin EEJiots don’t forget to PUT a friggin button there with that function. :fume:
I went to facebook to deactivate my account but it’s all in Chinee now and won’t change to English, so fuck it.