Providing data based on language choice

Data may be provided in a language chosen by a user. A data record may be stored in a database using symbols to represent data. These symbols may be converted into various languages. A resource file for a given language defines a correspondence between the symbols in the record and the words in that language. A user indicates a choice of language in which to receive data. The user's choice is stored in the database, and conversion information from the resource file for the user's chosen language is copied to the database. When a program connects to a database and requests data records, the user's language choice is retrieved from the data, and the conversion information stored in the database is used to convert the data records into the chosen language. The requested data is then provided to the application in the user's chosen language.