# Quick, check your FB start page. Are the labels German now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 25, 2016, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-check-your-fb-start-page-are-the-labels-german-now/755634 "2016-05-25T06:21:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-check-your-fb-start-page-are-the-labels-german-now/755634/1 "2016-05-25T06:21:33Z")
OK. So I’ve been on Facebook several times today, and there’s been nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve surfed to my start page several times. And now, having just entered from a new Mozilla session, it’s turned German. Obviously, I don’t mean the things that are posted by me or by others, but all the standard FB link texts. [German\_FB](https://flic.kr/p/HuDk72) [German\_FB\_2](https://flic.kr/p/HuDk6R) Now I have no objection to German as such. In fact, I can use it fairly well and always welcome a small foreign language challenge from time to time. But why me? And why now? One unusual thing has happened today," but I doubt there’s any connection. I’ve been listening to the audiobook _One Summer_ by Bill Bryson, and just came to where he discusses Jakob Ruppert, an early owner of the Yankees. Jakob, though a third generation American had kept his family’s German accent, so that for example instead of “Ruth” he would say something like “Root”. I was just googling for this team owner’s name before the facebook thing happened. And he was a collector of many things. He was noted for having the country’s finest collection of small monkeys. I can just imagine such a character in a film, played by one of our more ponderous screen legends like Sydney Greenstreet, talking at length about his collection of diminutive simians. Of course, he is boring his guests to tears. _There are two subspecies of red-crested marmoset,_ I seem to hear him saying,\* each with its own interesting history. Now Mico mico microscopium is known for…\* What gifts life gives us. Now no matter where I am or how bad things get, I can imagine a fat man jawing on and on about his collection of tiny monkeys. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-check-your-fb-start-page-are-the-labels-german-now/755634/2 "2016-05-25T06:23:34Z")
Nope. English. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-check-your-fb-start-page-are-the-labels-german-now/755634/3 "2016-05-25T06:31:51Z")
You probably just clicked on the “Deutsch” tab inadvertently. ---
**Author:** ![lilihob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a9adbd/32.png) [@lilihob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lilihob)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-check-your-fb-start-page-are-the-labels-german-now/755634/4 "2016-05-25T09:41:39Z")
My family of origin are Portuguese, I, my husband, and children are English and post in English. Twice now, I’ve had to go to settings and change back to English from Portuguese for different family members. I think it’s because a majority of our facebook friends post in Portuguese, so our walls are very bilingual. If Facebook is trying to be “helpful”, it’s not. Do you have a lot of German language facebook friends? ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-check-your-fb-start-page-are-the-labels-german-now/755634/5 "2016-05-25T09:57:44Z")
Mine is fine. On a related note, however, YouTube thinks I’m French. Not yet how often in change. My settings it always returns me to French. The odd thing is my parter, being Franco-Ontarian, choses French options whenever he is given a choice.(bank machines, voice prompts on automated calls, booking airline tickets, etc.) However, he has never set it up as default for YouTube or his Hotmail. I don’t care; I read French just fine, but it is odd. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-check-your-fb-start-page-are-the-labels-german-now/755634/6 "2016-05-25T16:50:43Z")
I’m still waiting for Quenya or Sindarin to become an option. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quick-check-your-fb-start-page-are-the-labels-german-now/755634/7 "2016-05-25T18:55:53Z")
> [@lilihob](#): > > Do you have a lot of German language facebook friends? I can’t think of any German FB friends at the moment, unless someone I know on here friended me without my knowing who they were. (I generally accept friends of known Dopers routinely.) I do get news items from _Focus Online_ and they are definitely on the prolific side. Very occasionally I comment in German about such news postings. But that’s about it.