In most of the languages available, the columns in output get
misaligned when non-ASCII characters are used. This makes it
very ugly and sometimes hard to read.

Compare:

$ for L in en de fr pl pt_BR sv uk vi zh_CN; do echo [$L];LANGUAGE=$L free|sed 's/^/>/';done
[en]
[de]
[fr]
[pl]
[pt_BR]
[sv]
[uk]
[vi]
[zh_CN]

Some of these (French) would need a different abbreviated translation
to fit the limits, but please look at the Ukrainian or at the lines
starting with Swedish ”Växl.:” (1 cell off), Polish „Pamięć:” or
Vietnamese “BNhớ:” (2 cells off).