Currently there is no way to add a default language for the "View" option to the right of a field. It simply picks the topmost language in the language list.
By adding a default language for the view-option in user settings it would ease the process of adding translations since you would not have to manually select a language for each field, you could simply go through the product(s), switch the language and repeat.
In the new translation UI that is released with Litium 8.18, the selected language in both columns are remembered by the system. So, there is not a user setting, but since the system remembers the selected languages, we hope this issue is solved.
Marking this idea as partly shipped, since we believe the issue solved with an alternative solution.