Gsheet Locale based on country not on language

[ddechamb]

If you are based in Switzerland, you will likely choose your Workplace account language in French, German, Italian or English. 

I have been trying to set the default Locale of my Gsheet to Switzerland, in order to see CHF as the default currency. 

My co-founder kept getting Euros as a currency, and I keep getting GBP. 

Turns out that (according to Google Support) the Locale is based on the Language and not on the Language + country.  

So my account is in English - Switzerland, my co-founder is French - Switzerland. 

For me this looks like a bug, or I'm a complete idiot. Also the feature must exist somewhere as it can (I guess) make the difference between English - UK and English - US... or is it continent based? 

Anyone facing the same issue? 

[ravikirancg123]

This is definitely a bug. A massive one at that. People did not really understand what they were doing when they designed locales. This issue exists with "India" related locales as well. If I change my locale to "India" it changes the language as well. Which is absurd.

[ddechamb]

Same issue here : https://support.google.com/docs/thread/14488545/bug-setting-default-language-for-english-in-europe-d...

And here: https://support.google.com/docs/thread/6060109/how-to-change-the-default-locale-for-google-sheets?hl...

[adrianramsey]

To resolve this issue, one of you will need to change the language setting of your Google account to match the other's language. For example, if you want to see CHF as the default currency, you should change your Google account language to French, as your co-founder has done. However, keep in mind that this will change the language of the entire Google interface to French, not just Google Sheets.

Regarding your observation about the difference between English - UK and English - US, you are correct. Google does differentiate between these variants, and they might have different default currencies associated with them. This is because some aspects of localization, like date formats and currencies, can vary between English-speaking regions.

To change the language setting of your Google account, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Google Account settings: https://myaccount.google.com/
2. Click on "Data & personalization" in the left-hand menu.
3. In the "General preferences for the web" section, click on "Language."
4. Add French or any other desired language and set it as the primary language.

After making this change, your default currency in Google Sheets should be CHF.

Please note that this will affect the language across all Google services associated with your account, not just Google Sheets. If you prefer to keep the English language for other services but want to see CHF as the default currency in Sheets, you can manually change the currency for each cell or range as needed. Just select the cells, then click Format > Number > More Formats > More currencies and choose CHF.

[ddechamb]

That's exactly my point and this is not resolving my issue. If you read my remark correctly, my co-founder is getting Euros not CHF, because the Locale is based on the Language not the country. 

Anyway yes I can alway manually change the settings every time we create a new sheet.  But this is not a resolution this is a work around.