YouTube! No Language Redirect Version

One of the problems with living long term in a foreign land is that commonly-used websites like Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube tend to automatically try to display themselves in the local language.  Here in Korea, the most homogenous country on Earth, displaying in Korean is a pretty safe bet for about 98% of the population.  But not for me, and maybe not for you.

1. Google No Country Redirect The wise designers at Google thought of this issue in advance, and thus made it super-easy to quickly search google with no redirection to non-English language pages.  Instead of navigating to http://www.google.com, simply tack on a “/ncr” on the end, resulting in: http://www.google.com/ncr

   Many users of Firefox love the Google Search box built into the toolbar, but using it in a foreign country results in foreign-language search results.  The solution is to replace the standard Search options in this box with their no-redirect equivalents.  The MyCroft Project lists all sorts of localized Google alternatives.  The third one in the list is the No Country Redirect version of the search box.

2. Gmail and Google Calendar Since you will almost always need to log in in order to get any use out of GMail or GCal, there’s no need to bother with a no-redirect URL.  Instead, log into either service as normal, and then access your “Settings” section at the top-right of any page in order to change your language preference, and, if desired, your Time Zone as well.  Changing the Time Zone is really quite vital when using Google Calendar, but be sure to fix any appointments that suddenly stray into the wee hours of the night.
   
3. Youtube No Country Redirect On one of the expat forums I frequent, someone asked how to get YouTube back into English while staying in Korea.  One of the responses was to look up at the top of the YouTube page, where the current country/language are listed, in order to change them appropriately into English, and maybe Canada/USA if the mood strikes you.

   This is a pretty good solution, but the result is that your language preference gets stored in your browser cookies, which many people like to empty from time to time.  Plus, if you use any other computer for a one-off YouTube visit, you have to do it all again, resulting in another semi-permanent change to that computer’s settings for all future users, most of whom may not appreciate their YouTube in your foreign language.

   I couldn’t find a no-country-redirect URL for YouTube anywhere online, but a quick look into the cookie file that YouTube saves and some trial and error resulted in this: http://www.youtube.com/?hl=en

   Just bookmark and/or memorize that link, and YouTube will forever load in English.

One Response to “YouTube! No Language Redirect Version”

1. TB says:

   October 14, 2008 at 2:53 pm

   Thanks for the tips. I haven’t used the Google search box in Firefox for ages because of the language being redirect problem. Korean search results aren’t my thing. You’ve just saved me a ton of effort. Thanks again!