Is it ok to use a default UI language other than English in C#?

6
votes

We have started to work on a C# project that was originally created by German speaking developers for German users. Most of the code, including class names, comments and debug messages is written in German and so is the user interface. As one of our major goals is globalization, we decided to leave the default language to German and add language resource libraries for other languages, including English, as any other option would have turned too costly in terms of time at first.

My question is: is this a good idea, or is it better to switch the default to US English at least for the user interface like everybody else is doing? Are there any drawbacks in using a default language other than US English?

2
c#localizationinternationalizationglobalization
I think it's fine, our product is actually written in Pig Latin, then translated into English. If Pig Latin shows up anywhere during QA, we know that we missed some things during translation. Microsoft does something similar with Pseudo-Locales for Windows. You happen to be using German. – vcsjones

2 Answers

4
votes

Although there is no reason for the default to be English, the way I would approach this is to imagine what you want to happen when people visit the site from a place you don't have a translation for.

For example, all of your German speaking visitors can be given the German translation, and all of your US English speakers would get the US English translation, but what happens when an French speaker visits the site? Is it better for them to get German or English as a default?

You would need to think in these terms really and decide based on who you think need to support.

It should affect your German speakers if you had a different default as they should still get the German version.

3
votes

There is nothing at all wrong with using a default language other than English. All the default language (culture, actually) does is supply resources for use when the current culture doesn't have them.

The text and image resources for the default language should be for the culture you intend to market to first - add others as time allows.