When you localize everything on your website, be sure to translate the languages listed in the language selector too. Otherwise, many of your website visitors might not even know that you have a localized version of your website in their language.

Assume you visit the corporate website of a Japanese company, a Chinese company, or another international company that operates in a language you do not understand. Would you know to click on the link to the English version if “English” were written in Japanese, Chinese, or the other language you could not read? Of course not. Likewise, non-English speakers will not know to select their language if it is not written in their language.

Bad Examples: Overtranslation of Language Selectors

This detail may seem obvious, but it is apparently not obvious enough. The image of the language selector above was taken from a live website – an international corporate website with everything except the language selector translated appropriately into Spanish, German, Italian, French, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese. To make matters worse, the Spanish version of this international company’s website has the entire language selector translated into Spanish, and the same mistake is repeated on every single language version of the website, as shown in the image below:

Best Practices for Language Selectors

So how are language selectors best used? Here are a few more quick tips:

• Use geolocation to detect the actual geographic location of the website visitor, or use browser language detection, and automatically direct him or her to the correct language version of the website without the use of the manual language selector
• Place the language selector in a clearly visible portion of the page – the top right-hand portion of the web page is often best as that is where internet users are likely to look for it first
• Use a small globe or world map to identify the language selector – flags are not only loud, but they also lack a one-to-one correspondence with each language

Caterpillar’s language selector is often used as a good example because of its top right placement, easily identifiable world map icon, and translated language names. Have a look at www.cat.com. Other websites with short home pages like www.facebook.com or www.globalization-group.com can display the language options almost as prominently at the bottom of the page. Go to www.nike.com to see a language selector that is displayed even more prominently.

Nike.com Language Selector

More info:

• How NOT to React When You Find Out Your Language Selector Stinks
• Language and Country Names List in Local Languages and Scripts