For English speakers, the web is their oyster. But if you speak German, Korean, or Urdu, which apps are the most language-inclusive?
A new report from tutorial site Preply looked at the top 50 free apps in the Apple App Store in the US and UK to see how many languages each app supports. At the top of the list is YouTube at 73 languages. That shouldn’t be too shocking; the Google-owned video site has been around since 2005 and rakes in a ton of cash, so it makes sense to allocate resources to services that will help grow its userbase.
Rival TikTok currently offers 32 languages in the US and UK, putting it at 14th and 15th for inclusivity, respectively. “With one billion users and growing, TikTok is offering popular languages such as Japanese, Arabic and French, but also less commonly known such as Bengali, Filipino, and Javanese, a local language to an island in Indonesia,” Preply says.
It’s interesting and somewhat baffling to see the sheer number of incredibly popular apps that shoot themselves in the foot by supporting only one language. These include Hinge, Hulu, Walmart, Venmo, and Discord. You can’t even manage to include Spanish? Sal de aquí!
Amazon’s app supports nine languages, though Prime Video ups that to 31.
English is the most-supported language; it’s found in 97% of the apps despite being spoken by only 17% of the world’s population. And some local dialects—like Welsh, “an official de jure language in the UK”—get left out entirely.
Researchers also looked at language support in apps that could benefit from more users, specifically dating apps and travel apps. At the top for dating apps is Tinder, with 56 languages. For travel, Uber wins with 37 languages.
