Advice on language switcher

[laurie_k]

Hi there,

I’m writing a multilingual website, or at least the navigation and core site functionality will be multilingual. The site is written in Laravel/PHP so the actual multi-language back end is no problem, I have that all in hand.

My question is, how to label the language switcher feature in the menu. Currently it has a globe icon and says “Language”, in the site default language which is obviously English.

Once you select that, the available languages appear, with each labelled in it’s own language, so Français, Español etc. I’ve garnished the sub menu options with colour flag svg icons as well.

Is there any internationally recognised way to label this? Bearing in mind it’s a menu option so space is limited, I can’t fit in the word language in 4 different languages. I’m considering changing the globe icon to a couple of flags…

Will a non English speaking German speaker recognise the word “Language” in English?

Any thoughts/tips much appreciated…

[bluedreamer]

Careful with using flags with languages, Spanish is spoken in many countries, not just Spain.

If you can’t fit the word language into your switcher because of “lack of space” then I’d say your design needs updating so it can be accomodated

[laurie_k]

@bluedreamer

guages, Spanish is spoken in m

Yeah the fact that languages don’t tie up with countries did occur to me, can you suggest a better icon for Spanish language than the Spanish flag?

And sorry I don’t think I could have explained myself well, I can fit the word language, in any given language into the menu. My concern is, at the moment English is the default, so when a new user arrives at the site, it is in English. Therefore the nav is in English and the Language thing is in English. So would a native German speaker with no English recognise the word Language as being the thing to go to to switch language?