Kindle Fails to Correctly Identify the Language of EPUB Files

[aefiufae]

Hi, I am a Kindle Scribe user, and I need to send some homemade EPUB content to my Kindle. This content includes Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and English. Currently, through my testing, when sending to Kindle via web and email, documents in English, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese are well-recognized and automatically use the corresponding Simplified Chinese, English, and Japanese fonts. However, upon testing, I found that when I send a Traditional Chinese EPUB document with the language code "zh-TW" to Kindle, Kindle still uses the default Simplified Chinese font. This is despite the fact that nowhere in the metadata is it declared that the file language is Simplified Chinese, and the document is written in Traditional Chinese. Although I can solve the incorrect language-font correspondence by changing the font, it becomes very cumbersome to switch fonts among books and documents in different languages, as I use four languages.

I hope to find a solution here, thank you very much.

Ps1: I have already tried declaring the language as "zh-tw" in the EPUB's .opf file, but this is ineffective.

Ps2: I have tried converting it locally to KFX format and copying it into Kindle, but since EPUB is the primary e-book distribution format, this is obviously too complicated.

[jhowell]

In my limited testing send-to-kindle truncates the language code of books to two characters. So Chinese language books sent that way have the language set as "zh", which is interpreted by Kindles as Simplified Chinese.

You could try reporting this problem to Amazon but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a fix.

[aefiufae]

Originally Posted by jhowell

In my limited testing send-to-kindle truncates the language code of books to two characters. So Chinese language books sent that way have the language set as "zh", which is interpreted by Kindles as Simplified Chinese.

You could try reporting this problem to Amazon but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a fix.

Thank you very much, I now understand the reason for this issue. In fact, I think this has occurred since Amazon started supporting EPUB files, as I've never encountered a similar situation before. Maybe one day they'll suddenly realize this issue, who knows.🤷

[resdinwel]

Have you tried declaring the language as 'zh-hant'?

Traditional Chinese ebooks from Kindle Store have language code 'zh-Hant' in KFX format. However you need to use lowercase 'zh-hant' inside 'dc:language' tag in the EPUB's *.opf.

This method doesn't work for most platforms (Eink, Android, iOS), since Amazon deliver KF8 to these devices. Maybe it would work for your Scribe?

[fronflower]

Here are a few suggestions to resolve the issue of Kindle displaying Traditional Chinese EPUBs with Simplified Chinese fonts:

Double check that the language code in the EPUB's metadata is correctly set to "zh-TW". This tells Kindle the content is in Traditional Chinese.

Try setting the font-family CSS style to a traditional Chinese font like "LiSong Pro" or "HanWangMingMed". This forces the traditional font rendering.

Convert the EPUB to Kindle Format 8 (KF8) instead of KFX. KF8 has better support for embedded fonts and advanced styling. Use KindleGen to convert.

As a workaround, email the EPUB to your Kindle email with "convert" in the subject. This will convert to Kindle Format and may properly detect the language.

If all else fails, contact Kindle customer support. Explain the issue in detail and they may have additional suggestions or be able to escalate to their technical teams.

The key is properly signaling the zh-TW language code and controlling the font rendering with custom CSS. With some experimentation, you should be able to find a workflow that works reliably. Let me know if you have any other questions!

[aefiufae]

Originally Posted by resdinwel

Have you tried declaring the language as 'zh-hant'?

Traditional Chinese ebooks from Kindle Store have language code 'zh-Hant' in KFX format. However you need to use lowercase 'zh-hant' inside 'dc:language' tag in the EPUB's *.opf.

This method doesn't work for most platforms (Eink, Android, iOS), since Amazon deliver KF8 to these devices. Maybe it would work for your Scribe?

I didi that, but it did not work, just as jhowell says, amazon just read some code before "-", what ever I added to, it will not be recognized by amazon.

This is just a minor issue, especially compared to editing the format of different books. After all, it doesn't affect my understanding of the book's content or introduce me to unfamiliar words. Perhaps it will take Amazon a long time to notice our feedback and address this bug. 🤷