Google Workspace half-hearted language implementations

[philip_mills]

I'm frustrated with the seemingly half-hearted implementation of GUI localizations.

1. Google sheets has been available for years in Estonian, yet there is no Estonian locale available in the sheet settings. In order to get correct date/time and currency format we have to use Finnish locale instead, which is kinda ok, except when using forms all the automatically created sheets and headings are in Finnish too. 
2. All of Workspace primary applications are available in Estonian and have been for many years -  except for  calendar. Yet the calendar app in Android is available in Estonian.

I know that similar issues exist in other languages too.

Such inconsistencies are very frustrating.

[bill_pier3]

Popycock!   Google Workspace services support 72 locales from around the world, and 56 languages. This doesn't strike me as "half-hearted" at all!  If Estonian locale distinctions are significant enough from the Finnish locale, then submit a feature request.

ref: Google Workspace Admin SDK 

ref: Google Workspace Admin Help (domain-wide and user-specific settings)

ref: Google Spreadsheets settings

[Óli]

Hi Bill

If you don't know the issue, don't comment. Your response is clearly English centric with no real life experience with issues related to less used languages.

I came here specifically to raise this feature request and reading Philip's points makes me want to give up already.

Not only the Workspace web apps but all language related features need to be simplified and coordinated. They are a mess all around Google apps and on ChromeOS.

My issue is with Icelandic language as I administer a couple of hundred Chromebook laptops. It is available as a session language on ChromeOS, but not as default language on the Admin console. This means I will require our 8 year old users at school to start by selecting their native language from a drop-down list. 

It should just be available in the Admin Console since it is already an option.

Of course it is fantastic that the language is available at all but the complaint is about the lack of consistency.

Thank you, Philip, for writing about your experience.

Best regards,

Óli

[J6rms]

Sad to see that there is still no progress on the issue.

The difference between Finnish and Estonian locale is just about as large as the difference in English-US and Spanish-US locale. The language is different. While the number formatting is OK, all the months, weekdays etc are labelled wrong.

I wouldn't say I could easily use Finnish locale as a replacement.

I've been reporting the missing Estonian locale through Sheets Help menu for years. Is there pehaps a better way to submit a feature request that would get more attention?

[philip_mills]

Unbelievably rude...

Clearly you don't give a monkeys, and you didn't read my second point.

Why implement a language that's only spoken in one location on the planet, but fail to implement the locale for that language? It's pretty stupid, and not hard to fix.  This problem affects many countries even including New Zealand (if I'm not mistaken).   Then to implement a language for all the major apps in Workspace EXCEPT ONE, and leave it like that for years. 

Tell me that's not half-hearted.

Every language should have the corresponding locale available. Simple as that.

I have been drawing attention to this since 2014 and I have made feature requests already for this, but they disappeared when the cloudcommunity moved over to this system. 

The feature request system is fundamentally flawed as it relies too much on voting, and for a small country you're never going to get the votes required, especially when there's people like you who don't seem to care at all

[Kimma]

Thank you for posting this. We have similar issues in our company, especially with locale being auto put to US, meaning date format is wrong (yes, the US date format is objectively wrong and doesn't make sense :P). We can't change this centrally in google workspace (region and timezone is already set to Oslo in admin console) so every user has to individually change it. Very frustrating, especially when dealing with sheets. This seems like such a basic function to have, so its' oversight sort of baffles me.

[KAM]

@Kimma I agree!  I wish the US and the world would just adopt YYYY-MM-DD. -KAM