Fahed Sabbagh

Being in the middle east, we get automatically directed to Google.ae services (Google UAE) which means Arabic interfaces in most Google products.

I’ve been asked how to change the language back into English a million times, and to be honest, it think Google made a terrible mistake here.

The problem:

Here’s a screenshot of Blogger.com login screen. as someone who doesn’t read Arabic, you are completely clueless on how to change the language. why? Because the button that’s supposed to say “Language” says “اللغة” instead.

Yes, it’s in Arabic, The language from which you’re trying to switch.

Next, let’s assume you manage to find the button, here’s where the link takes you:

It’s a page that lists all the languages IN ARABIC and the native script, go ahead and select one.

To save you the trouble of finding the “Save Settings” button, I’ve added an arrow pointing it out. You will now get the English interface.

The same applies to the Google home page and search results. Here’s what I got when I used the Firefox search box:

Again, you’ll need to find the link to the “Language tools” page which is also linked in Arabic as “أدوات اللغة”

Now clicking on that link, takes you to probably one of the worst pages in web usability history. Here’s what you’d see":

This is a list of languages, ironically titled “Use Google in YOUR Language”. Again the list is in Arabic, but with NO TRANSLATION this time. (I’ve highlighted English here)

Conclusion:

I know that developers at Google UAE must have worked hard on this, but keeping in mind that less than half of the residents of the UAE actually read Arabic, they should have performed thorough testing on those pages for those who don’t read Arabic.

I’m hoping they realise this mistake soon and have it fixed, meanwhile you’ll have to ask for help from your Arab friend