Google stuck in Nihongo

[Robert Seltman]

I was helping a friend make a poster in Nihongo and so needed to use the Japanese side of Google. Now my search engine is stuck in Nihongo despite changing back to Google English many times. Each time I insert a word into the Google window on my menu bar the page will be on the Japanese side of Google.

Help! I want my English Google, I use it everyday!

[Tall Paul]

I have the same problem when trying to access other sites, such as MySpace. If not sure if there is a solution, but I'd like to hear if there is one.

-Paul

[Tall Paul]

Ok, I do have an answer, at least for MySpace. If you have an account (something I would rather eat dirt than do) you can set a country as a preference. As for Google, I had the same problem for a time, but it seemed to get the message after a while and stopped offering the Japanese page. I do have membership in a Google forum, but the change came before I joined up.

-Paul

[Col]

I don't have this problem, despite doing a significant amount of searching in Japanese.

I am guessing that this may be because I have a Gmail account. This means that Google do track my searches and adjust the results accordingly. It may also mean that the majority of my search items being in English over-rules Google's geolocation  feature which would show me to be in Japan.

I notice at a uni where I teach Internet English courses that the students, although searching in English in the computer lab, get a lot of Japanese results and I, using the instructor's computer (an execrable Windows XP thing) get a lot of English results - possibly because I am logged into my Gmail account at the time.

One thing you could try is deleting Google cookies from your browser and selecting "Use Google in English" if it comes up in Japanese. And tell us if it makes any difference.

Colin

[Robert Seltman]

Thank You once again. By removing the appropriate cookies (with the tag .jp) I could again regain my English browser. I have since tried to remove many unnecessary cookies without losing my password info in some Japanese services I use frequently (like Amazon Japan).

Thanks again for the help!
.

[Denny Crane]

Thank You once again. By removing the appropriate cookies (with the tag .jp) I could again regain my English browser. I have since tried to remove many unnecessary cookies without losing my password info in some Japanese services I use frequently (like Amazon Japan).

Thanks again for the help!
.

I tried removing the Google cookies from my browser (Firefox 1.5.0.12) this morning, first the Japanese one and then the English as well. and neither worked for me. It still opens every time in Google.co.jp. A bother.

Perhaps Colin's other theory, about the location of the provider, affects this. Mine is set up through SpinNet.

[Hound]

I tried removing the Google cookies from my browser (Firefox 1.5.0.12) this morning, first the Japanese one and then the English as well. and neither worked for me. It still opens every time in Google.co.jp. A bother.

Perhaps Colin's other theory, about the location of the provider, affects this. Mine is set up through SpinNet.

================
Have you tried other browsers, all with the same result?  Then it might indeed have something to do with your provider.  Otherwise, I would suspect some cookie/preference file somewhere that has you stuck.

Good luck!

-Brian

[ronr]

Sorry to come late to this. Same kind of thing happened to me in youtube.com--instead of messing with cookies, etc. I just went up to the upper-right corner and changed the Japanese flag to a Canadian flag. Change stuck.

[Robert Seltman]

But why not offer the main site in the USA As an option? Why filter all international English speakers through the UK? The world of the web Has such mysteries, is it copy right issues, some legal reasoning, cultural taboos, or simply a software oversight?? 

[Jimmie]

What happens when you set your Google Preferences to English? If the answer is 'nothing' then you should turn off "Private Browsing" in Safari because as long as that's on, it seems _nothing_ is remembered, even a web site's preferences. You can turn it back on after the change is effected.

Jimmie