( CNN ) -- Shopping for some aplicaciones ? Google is surprising and frustrating some visitors to the new Web-based Android app store by greeting them in a foreign tongue . The website appears to choose which language to display based on the geographic location of the visitor 's internet address , and that detection method can be pretty good at guessing a person 's language preference . But for people traveling abroad , living in foreign countries or accessing the Web through an international proxy service , Google 's guess can be awkwardly wrong . On other Google sites , people can navigate to domains that cater to a specific language , or designate their choice with a link called `` language tools . '' No such navigation is available on the online Android Market . A Google spokesman said the Android Market site is designed only for United States-based English speakers . More languages will be added to the site in coming weeks , the spokesman said . There was no mention of this restriction at last week 's ribbon cutting for the Android Market website . The announcement on the Android Developers blog did , however , say it would start out as English-only . Some Android fans were miffed to learn that Google seemed not to cater to them . Will Deasy from Cork , Ireland , tipped off CNN to the language problems with the Android Market website . Deasy was traveling to South America and lamented the `` missing feature '' for setting a language . This comes as Android phones continue to surge in popularity . Handsets running Android made up 22.7 % of all smartphones sold worldwide last year , according to a report from research firm Gartner . Many of those customers do not live in the United States . There is a work-around for the problem , however . On Google 's support forum , users suggested adding this text -- `` ? hl=en '' -- to the end of the site 's Web address in order to tell the browser to load the site in English . Swap `` en '' for `` es , '' and you get Spanish ; or `` fr '' for French ; and so on . Google also offers an internet translation service . Still , dozens of Android Market users continued to flock to Google message boards to express frustrations . `` Many sites these days try to be smart and automatically change their language without giving you the option to change it back , '' said one person who speaks English but lives in Hong Kong . `` There should always be the option to change it , clearly labeled on the site . '' In another message , an Android user wrote : `` I am traveling , and I want things in English , but I get Dutch instead . It 's awful . '' Julie Vetter , on the support board , offered this plea : . `` Google , please respond , in any language . ''
The Android World Service chooses a language based on where a user is from . This can be a pain for people who do n't speak the national language or for travelers . Google says it 's working on languages for other countries and languages .