International and multilingual Excel help

International Excel Function Names

Understand how Excel function names, separators, and date formats can change across languages and regions.

What changes by language or region

Some Excel installations translate function names, while Excel for the web and many documentation sources use English names.
Argument separators can be commas or semicolons depending on regional settings.
Date formats can change the meaning of imported values, especially between month/day/year and day/month/year regions.

How to avoid international formula issues

Confirm whether your Excel version expects commas or semicolons before copying formulas from the web.
Use DATE(year, month, day) instead of typed date strings when formulas must be portable.
When sharing files globally, document the intended locale and Excel version.