If current language option doesn't need to show, how to display a language selector?

Question

According to https://ux.stackexchange.com/a/38982/111876, I don't need to display the current selected language option because the UI already provided this information. But I found it is difficult to display the language selector without current selected language, for example:

Case 1: Display other available language

I found it looks like telling user that this page is written in Es currently.

Case 2: use ----- :

It seems look even worse because I believe users would have no idea what ----- is. So my question is, if current language option is not required to show, how to I display the language selector?

Answer 1

The key point is not about about whether you should show the current language, but how you design the language selector.

It's really not a big deal if you show the current language in the control that's used to change language (dropdown selector in your case). When a speaker of that language is on a screen, it would seem perfectly natural to see reference to the language they are reading in.

The case you should design for is when a visitor ends up on a screen in a language they can't read.

If your language selector is just that dropdown box, then a non-speaker of the current language won't know where to change it.

The most common pattern to solve this problem is to add a globe or map icon to the control. Something like shown below.

This communicates to a user who might be scanning a page looking for a way to change language "This control has something to do with internationalization or languages"

Answer 2

If you have only few languages, another common pattern is to display the languages in a link list, current language as a non link.

That way you solve both problems showing which language you are using now, and if someone ends up to a page they can't read.

Answer 3

A better choice is to use a flag of the country to signify language. A flag is far less ambiguous than your conventional icons. A flag represents a country. Humans associate languages to countries. games-workshop.com does this well.

Be careful before using icons. If you want to use an icon pick a couple different ones. Conduct testing with users to see what they see as language and if space permits add verbiage next to it.