Multilanguage listings

[Giancarlo44]

We need links to language versions.

Here is my latest rant, which I have just sent to the AirBnB website box for specific issues. I'm sure that this link, dunno if any of you has yet discovered it, is in reality just a tame blackhole that the original webmaster installed on the site.

"Your policy of hiding from users is appalling! Why don't you provide a webmaster address in order to sort out bugs and shortcomings? This is one of the basics of web etiquette that's been in place since the dawn of the www. Your help-series-of-useless-menus just sends the user around-and-around the site like the proverbial blue-ass fly. This is simply frustrating for the user and arrogant on your side.
Anyway, the latest stupidity I've come across regarding your web design, is about managing listings in different languages. Let me make a drawing for you so that maybe, with some luck, I'll get a response from someone. Now, when I first listed my property in Scalea, Italy - since I'm bilingual - I drew up a description in English and Italian. However, the stupidity of your site design, only allowed the host to insert the property description in one language. Since I was managing it from a South African IP, I was forced to enter it in English only. Although, I suppose, I could have entered it in Italian.

To my horror, I've just discovered that Italian users, are presented with a version of my property description that's been generated by "Google Translate". It seems as if you smart-ass web designers have never come across the joke "the vodka is great but the steak is bloody awful". And, sure enough, Google Translate made a proper dog's breakfast of my carefully drafted property description. A noteworthy example of the horrors found in the IT version of it, is the statement that St. Eufemia airpoort is 18 minutes from my property. My original version clearly stated that the airport is a two hour drive away along the SS18 national road. Now, who do you think is going to get his ear bent if a guest were to trust this misinformation and discover that instead of a short 18 min drive he has been duped into a two hour long slog? Certainly not you guys, because you're hiding from everybody. It is really the hight of stupidity to offer customers a broken machine translation when you have perfectly correct bilingual or even multilingual versions provided by the hosts themselves.

So, what is needed here is:

1 - Allow the host the freedom to publish in any language. Fall-back on Google Translate only if necessary
2 - Provide users with links to languages as an opening home page for hosts. This would make it easier for hosts to check and edit the various language versions."

Incidentally, even your pretence of an html editor works in a weird way! The numbered listing gets applied to the whole post instead of the paragraph selected. Well done!

[Lynnie1]

I have also had a problem with Google Translate. My first Guest left a review in French. If you hit the Translate button to change it to English, instead of saying, "There is no lack of cooking utensils", it says, "It lacks any kitchen utensil"

AirBnB was not able to change it, so I put in a response that I was glad he found it well-stocked.

[Giancarlo44]

Thanks for your input Lynnie. I have been pleasantly surprised to notice that, since publishing my post, the offending mistranslation has been sneakingly edited. This must have been done by Google Translate or, whoever can edit the code of the version deployed on AirBnB. Regardless of this mickeymousey, though, there remains the proper dog's breakfast of the whole machine translation. Some pearls I've just noticed "One and a half bathrooms" has become "bagno di mezzo e mezzo" i.e. "a halfway bathroom" "Making up the 'toe of Italy's boot' this region is ... " has become "Costruire la 'punta dell'avventura italiana' questa regione è ..." i.e. "Constructing the point of your Italian adventure this region is ..." " ... getting around within Scalea ..." has become " ... accaparrarsi all'interno di Scalea ... " i.e. " ... grabbing inside Scalea ... " There are many more such pearls, of course, besides the general clumsiness of the translation. Why doesn't Google just leave alone what they are incapable of doing and leave it to those who can??!! And surely, AirBnB, you can do better than this! Admit that using machine translations so blindly was a stupid decision, fire whoever was responsible for this decision and provide flexibility for your users.

[Anonymous]

@Giancarlo44 the feature you're ranting about already exists.

When you click the Edit button on each text field of your listing description, "Add a Language" appears in the upper right corner of the screen. You will be able to post descriptions in however many languages you want, and each will appear by default to users browsing Airbnb in that language. 

If for some reason the auto-translate is overriding the additional versions submitted by the host, that would indeed be a bug. But I haven't seen this happen so far.

[Giancarlo44]

Thanks Andrew. It works now. I tried it a few days ago but the link/button was not responding. Maybe I just had a slow connection or a buggy browser. Or, maybe, there was a glitch in the web site. Thanks again