Comment by carstenhag
1 day ago
Haven't tested the functionality yet, but some feedback:
- the name is bad. Issen? I (German, Spanish speaker) don't know how to pronounce it.
- use correct flags. Catalan speakers will be rightfully pissed when you use the Spanish flag for their language.
- in a language learning focused app, it is not acceptable to have a badly translated app. I'm using it in German and while the intro does not have typos, I can tell it's all just AI blubber
- For German specifically, I'd recommend you to use "du" and not "Sie" ("Wie heißen Sie?") across the app. If your tool isn't aimed at 60+ year old BMW drivers, use "du".
Catalan, the language, does not have a flag. As a native speaker (of a dialect) who is not from Catalonia I would much rather the language be represented by the Spanish national flag. Although people from Andorra might also not love that.
Languages and flags don't mix well.
All the areas where Catalan is spoken as a mothertongue:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alghero
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andorra
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balearic_Islands
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyr%C3%A9n%C3%A9es-Orientales
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencian_Community
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragon
All of them share the coat of arms of the crown of Aragon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_Crown_of_A... . Thus using the "four red pallets on a gold background" represents all the speakers in different European countries.
I am not sure if I got you, are you aware of the cultural/political issues around it? There's no flag for the language (as it's used at many places), but almost everyone will be happy with a commonly known flag they can identify with. A Valencian will be fine with a Catalunya flag :)
The cultural/political issues are deeper than you'd think, there are some within Catalonia that would claim all of us Catalan speakers as part of the same cultural umbrella, negating our own cultural background as derivative.
That's why I say that I personally (as a Mallorcan) would much prefer the language to be associated with a Spanish flag than a Catalan flag. Some people would agree and some would disagree – ultimately the best thing is to not link flags to languages anyway.
To give you another example from Issen, they're also using the American flag for English which is probably even more controversial :)
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Academically, maybe it doesn't have a flag. But the de facto flag is the Senyera and I don't think a lot of people wouldn't recognize it as such in Spain.
I wonder if anyone ever came up with logos or at least emoji codes for languages?
The English intro feels non-native too, and does have a typo (“You’ll be truly amazed of how polished […]”), which makes me think it wasn’t AI.
Also on the controversial flags side: using the British flag to represent Welsh
Or American ;)