I have a multi-lingual page where I want to display form validation error in the user's language. I use a hidden input to determine which language version the user is browsing like this: <input type="hidden" name="lang" id="lang" value="<?php echo $lang; ?>" />

The PHP side of the script works, but jQuery doesn't seem to realize which language is passed on. It displays the English error message no matter on which language site I am.

Here's the code (I removed the other form fields for length):

            $(document).ready(function(){
                $('#contact').submit(function() {
                    $(".form_message").hide();

                    var emailReg = /^([\w-\.]+@([\w-]+\.)+[\w-]{2,4})?$/;
                    var lang = $("#lang").val();
                    var name = $("#name").val();

                    var dataString = {
                        'lang': lang,
                        'name': name
                    }

                    if (name == '') {
                        if (lang == 'de') {
                            $("#posted").after('<div class="form_message"><p><span class="error">Fehler:</span> Bitte gib deinen Namen an!</p></div>');
                        } else {
                            $("#posted").after('<div class="form_message"><p><span class="error">Error:</span> Please enter your name!</p></div>');
                        }
                        $("#name").focus();
                        $("#name").addClass('req');
                    } else  {
                        $("#loading").show();
                        $("#loading").fadeIn(400).html('<img src="/img/loading.gif" />Loading...');
                        $.ajax({
                        type: "POST",
                        url: "/contact-post.php",
                        data: dataString,
                        cache: false,
                        success: function(html){

                            $("#loading").hide();
                            $("#posted").after('<div class="form_message"><p>Thank you! Your contact request has been sent.</p></div>');
                            $("#contact input:submit").attr("disabled", "disabled").val("Success!");

                    }
                });
                }return false;
            }); });

The problem seems to be somewhere in the nested if statement. Does jQuery / javascript even recognize nested ifs? And if yes, why is it not working?