Flags to symbolize languages?

[Jamie (K)]

I grew up in an English-speaking country and can look across our end of the lake and see another English-speaking country. Together our two countries contain two-thirds of the native English speakers in the world. Neither country is under the British flag.

The first time I went to Europe, I stood in front of a telephone at Frankfurt airport and read the instructions that were under the little German flag. I thought the text under the little British flag was about how to phone to the UK, and I wasn't phoning there. There were no instructions under a US flag, so I figured the information I needed must be under the German flag. It took me a few days to realize that the flags were supposed to symbolize languages, because I'd never seen that before.

Now I notice that on the nicer European websites the designers use the word "Welcome" or "English" to indicate the English language. Some worse sites use a British flag. I know this little flag is just supposed to mean "the English language", but part of me understands it as saying, "We are interested in British visitors, but if you are not British and speak English, you can read this too."

Is anyone else bothered by clicking on another country's flag to read their own language? I think it's a little bit rude to make people do that. What do you think?

[Torsten]

Hi Jamie, you have brought up an interesting point here. I agree with you - it might be better to use words instead of flags to indicate the language a text is in. So instead of using an American, a British, an Irish, an Australian or Canadian flag as the symbol for an English version of a text or website you can simply say English Version or just English for that matter. I think most corporate website use the word english or english version instead of using a flag.
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Jamie (K)]

[Yankee]

Hi Jamie

Now that you mention it, I guess I have noticed that more than just a few web sites and other places use a British flag symbol to indicate the English language. But, somehow it has never confused or irritated me. But your point is good.

Hi Torsten

This is the case for the hotel web site I had a look at (in your "How to promote tourist services" thread). If you go to their start page, you've got only German text and under that, symbols of a German flag or a British one.

Amy
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Torsten]