I'm Swedish, lived in London for 10 years and now I live in Spain. I have been traveling around the world for appr 30 years now.
One of the issues that I'm struggling with is language and automatic referral to sites.
I have nothing against Spanish, I do speak it fluently and I'm married to a Mexican girl. But when it comes to computing, I do want to have my things in English. One of the first issues I had with this was when trying to buy a new Laptop to my wife from Spain. I found it to be impossible to buy a Laptop with Windows in English from here in Spain. In the end I found one site in the Uk that were willing to ship a Laptop to me here. This has become worse from Windows 7 when Microsoft decided in all their wisdom to exclude the language packages from all but the most expensive Windows version. It can be downloaded afterward to a substantial fee of course.
When it comes to phones and it's software, it' different and very frustrating I must say (mainly because there are fewer options and settings the user can change).
I have of course been able to set the language and my keyboard on my phone to English. But, applications/sites like Google, Google+, Google books, Google Play all insist on directing me to their Spanish internet pages. I have turned of all location services on the phone, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.
Lets say this heads up: I don't want to avoid giving business to these Spanish sites, I simply want to have all in English. I'm also willing to pay the Spanish prices if there are differences in prizing between countries. But, I do want to have the right to choose which language to use and when.
When it comes to Spain, there is even a commercial case for this. There are around 7 million English speaking expats living here which is more people than Norway and Denmark combined. In addition, who knows how many millions other expats (not counting the Latin Americans) that would prefer English and/or at least to be able to choose.
Another example is books. When it comes to physical books, I have found 2 sites in the Uk that ships books to Spain, but what a waste of time and money. In the case of Google books, I have found no way to specify that I want my books in English.
The problem is even worse when it comes to Video/films because in this case the laws specify that for example BBC is only allowed to transmit it's content within the borders of the Uk. A better example is maybe Itunes. The Spanish Itunes site only have films in Spanish. This is a disaster since everything is dubbed to English. Imagine looking at and hearing Jack Nicholson speaking Spanish. It's awful if you aren't used to it, but worse is that the artistic value is drastically reduced.
There are ways around this of course, but they are frustratingly all illegal.
So, back to Android, Google and my Samsung Galaxy S2. Is there a way of telling my device that my language preference is English and thus always get directed to the English language relevant sites??
Kent Eriksson
One of the issues that I'm struggling with is language and automatic referral to sites.
I have nothing against Spanish, I do speak it fluently and I'm married to a Mexican girl. But when it comes to computing, I do want to have my things in English. One of the first issues I had with this was when trying to buy a new Laptop to my wife from Spain. I found it to be impossible to buy a Laptop with Windows in English from here in Spain. In the end I found one site in the Uk that were willing to ship a Laptop to me here. This has become worse from Windows 7 when Microsoft decided in all their wisdom to exclude the language packages from all but the most expensive Windows version. It can be downloaded afterward to a substantial fee of course.
When it comes to phones and it's software, it' different and very frustrating I must say (mainly because there are fewer options and settings the user can change).
I have of course been able to set the language and my keyboard on my phone to English. But, applications/sites like Google, Google+, Google books, Google Play all insist on directing me to their Spanish internet pages. I have turned of all location services on the phone, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.
Lets say this heads up: I don't want to avoid giving business to these Spanish sites, I simply want to have all in English. I'm also willing to pay the Spanish prices if there are differences in prizing between countries. But, I do want to have the right to choose which language to use and when.
When it comes to Spain, there is even a commercial case for this. There are around 7 million English speaking expats living here which is more people than Norway and Denmark combined. In addition, who knows how many millions other expats (not counting the Latin Americans) that would prefer English and/or at least to be able to choose.
Another example is books. When it comes to physical books, I have found 2 sites in the Uk that ships books to Spain, but what a waste of time and money. In the case of Google books, I have found no way to specify that I want my books in English.
The problem is even worse when it comes to Video/films because in this case the laws specify that for example BBC is only allowed to transmit it's content within the borders of the Uk. A better example is maybe Itunes. The Spanish Itunes site only have films in Spanish. This is a disaster since everything is dubbed to English. Imagine looking at and hearing Jack Nicholson speaking Spanish. It's awful if you aren't used to it, but worse is that the artistic value is drastically reduced.
There are ways around this of course, but they are frustratingly all illegal.
So, back to Android, Google and my Samsung Galaxy S2. Is there a way of telling my device that my language preference is English and thus always get directed to the English language relevant sites??
Kent Eriksson
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