Hey everybody! This is obviously not a big deal or anything, but am just curious; why is English not available on major websites and platforms?
For example, PlayStation Store- it is only in German/French/Italian, despite the fact that it’s a big company and adding English shouldn’t be an issue?
Same applies for business/services like HelloFresh, that are available internationally, but their website, apps and deliveries all come in German/French/Italian (hence why I stopped using this service for example)
Now, I know that these 3 languages are the official and most spoken languages in Switzerland, but there are so many native English speakers living in Switzerland, I do wonder if English will ever be incorporated into these language options.
Side note: this is just an open discussion- of course I am busy learning German to integrate with society here, but sometimes I do wish English was slightly more available for things like this..
Do you think businesses could be losing on possible income because English is not available?
https://i.redd.it/8xlxnmh5ulyc1.jpeg
Posted by Irina_Rina_Pan
8 Comments
English is not an official language, many companies just don’t bother. I’m already happy when they support french and italian.
In the industry there’s often english however, companies got many angry emails if they didn’t.
Because managing languages on a software platform is a pain in the ass, and adding an additional one means more work.
That combined with the fact that there might be strong incentives (legal, PR, etc…) to prioritise official Swiss languages on a Swiss website could explain it.
The companies in these examples are international corporations. My guess is their policy is to only offer national languages in all countries per default (+ spanish in the US). Switzerland is a small market, and expats in Switzerland an even smaller one.
Your screen is in English. It will come up a a choice if you choose another one. I have a psn account in CH and all in English.
But to your point, there are even a lot of government/official websites in Zurich that support only DE and if you’re lucky DE and EN. I don’t understand why a government website does not support all the official languages of its own country…
[Considering English is now the 3rd most common Language](https://www.iamexpat.ch/expat-info/swiss-expat-news/english-replaces-italian-3rd-most-common-first-language-swiss-cities) of Switzerland you would expect it to be more common than it is online.
And then you have Decathlon that one day decided to not have English as an option anymore
They might have the website in English, but you also have to translate the country specific legal mumbo jumbo into English which can become quite expensive.
Why don’t learn an official swiss language?