(no subject)

Well, that was frustrating.

I needed to download an app for something, but when I looked it up on Google Play it had really bad ratings. Concerned, I decided to look at what the reviews were saying, but google just said "no reviews in your language". by which they meant "all the reviews are in Spanish, because this app is for something in Argentina and all users speak Spanish". As it happens I am perfectly capable of reading Spanish, but I typically default to setting my language on various devices and bits of software to English if possible (much easier to e.g. look up how to do something when the instructions you found on the internet and the labels on the menu options are using the same words)

I tried to get it to show me reviews anyway. No success. Tried to look through the app's preferences to change the language. Nothing. Tried to look at the web version of Google Play. Nope. Tried to log in with a different google account that does have Spanish set as its preferred language. Google Play remained in English.

Eventually what worked was changing my phone's language settings, from English primary and Spanish secondary to the other way around. I could see what the bad reviews had to say, figure out if that problem applied to my situation, and move on with my life.

I'm still kind of angry at Google, though. This whole thing could have been obviated with an option to look at reviews even when you don't speak the language. It could also have been obviated by Google, company famous for both knowing everything and for organising information, to notice the fact I had directly told them, twice, that I speak two languages, both when setting up my google account and in my phone's language settings. But no, they decided bilinguals do not exist and also people need to be very thoroughly protected from ever looking at content in a language they can't read.

Yes, I'm a weirdo who sets zir phone to English while living in Latin America. You could blame this on me making bad life choices. Of course, if I hadn't, I would have had this exact same problem in reverse when dealing with the various apps on my phone whose primary audience speaks English, which is most of them, so there's no winning move for me here.