Chinese songs title suddenly translated to ENGLISH ??

[cdiony]

I listen to both English and Chinese songs and since last week I released that LOTS and LOTS of songs with chinese characters suddenly got replaced by English, either in PinYin or direct translation. Now most of the songs title are NOT RECOGNISABLE.

This happen and I believe could be due to following.

1) This is a translation algorithm within Spotify.

2) This is the metadata provided by the record company.

If it is (1), please fix it. If it is (2), don't Spotify have a policy to insist that metadata supplied by record owner MUST BE IN NATIVE LANGUAGE?

This is a deal breaker NOW after being a premium user for a long time and I really enjoy Spotify.

Attached a playlist of chinese songs curated by Spotify and the circled portions are example of  what happen since last week.

Plan

Premium

Country

Singapore

Device

(iPhone 13 Pro Max, Samsung Tab S8)

Operating System

(iOS 15.5, Android 11)

My Question or Issue

[ClassicalListener]

Replying to give this support and visibility. Will also jump ship if not fixed (and only a few songs on my list are affected. Totally agree with you all with this problem.

[twyeo]

Hi spotify,

This is a deal breaker. It is no longer possible to find songs! My playlists are unrecognizable now. 

Please fix this. Thanks! 

[bzoo]

whats worse is some of these translations aren't even accurate! for example, Jay Chou's 晴天 got translated to 'Chin Tien' instead of 'Qing Tian" what is this bs!

[teohrh]

Just to add on this, it's totally fine you want to run both versions but give users the option if they want the names translated or not, as I understand it does help to widen the audience and assist those who don't type in Chinese. For Jay Chou as an example, on the artist page it is all English now for his latest album but when I checked the playlist for all his songs under 最愛周杰倫 they are all in Chinese (probably for Taiwan market?) So it's definitely possible and within your power. 

[Doonster]

One reason I am contemplating of ditching Spotify is no Spotify HIFI, now I have another reason.

Spotify save your resources to translate the Mandarin song titles to English, there is no direct translation and focus on rolling out Spotify HIFI. Back to default plssss. 

[orangejar]

I would love for things to go back to their original titles, so much is unreadable and uncomprehensible now...

If wanting things to be uniform is the whole point, then like others said, I think it would be nice to have an option in settings like "show titles and artists in original language" / "translate titles and artists to English" 

[JHplayz]

So Spotify…do you really REALLY expect any of us users to try and find Chinese songs especially using Pinyin and with the intonations missing? And also many of the Pinyin is even spelled wrongly, get that right first at least.

What are were you thinking? Do you think the Chinese language can be romanised like the Japanese and Korean language? And also, why are some of the songs suddenly translated into English? Thanks to you guys, I don’t even know which song is which?! 

I get it, there’s a huge English listener market out there, and many people who don’t understand just East Asian languages in general, but if you’re really just trying to cater to one type of listener, then what’s the point of even expanding globally in the first place? Spotify IS RESPONSIBLE to cater to many different types of listeners, which includes people like us who are already familiar with these languages and therefore would like to see it in its original native language, even if our phone settings is in English. 

I have a suggestion Spotify, if you really insist on using this feature, why not add a setting feature to turn on or off this new beta feature you’re all playing with instead? At least have the courtesy to do so.

I really hope this gets resolved as soon as possible. Also anybody reading this post, please give this thread likes as it will raise the chances of getting attention from Spotify! 

(If I’m not mistaken, there was another post suggesting romanised lyrics for non-English songs and got a lot of attention from Spotify and that probably caused the current change now? Not too sure, just some speculation…)

[forusps]

CHI LI SHIANG!!!!! I FU CHI MIN!!!!!! bruh🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[yourFlammablebunny]

Same problem as reported. That's so unthoughtful and rude update for your users. You cannot assume everyone only use English right?

[-u9rnjizv_3l]

i am experiencing the same experience and this is totally unacceptable. please revert to original song names with chinese characters, otherwise i would also unsubscribe.

[cdiony]

Written to CEO and hopefully he takes note. 

[lecielbleu]

Oh my god that's ridiculous. Even English to Chinese LOL.

[Earlgreybbt]

Yes agree with the above.. the changes to English/ pinyin make it immensely difficult to identify what the songs are @@ it seems to be an intentional change from Spotify? I will have to consider changing my subscription to another provider too..

[ChinHan]

I am having the same issues and am mighty **bleep** off and yes, it’s a deal breaker for me and am seriously considering alternatives such as Apple Music. I am a premium subscriber too. Spotify shouldn’t do this to us. This Cantopop fan is having a hard time searching for Cantonese songs now. 😭

[kanyeselatan]

I'm struggling to find Jay Chou's songs in my playlist now. Hundreds of songs and I have to use extra time to find the song I intend to listen.

[ashie99]

Frustrated too, they are fixing a non existent problem. Jumping ship in a month if this persists, there are many competitors in the market now. If Spotify wants to be a global company, they should act like it.

[hej23]

Spotify, please stop flexing your overstaffed company's undertasked ability to provide usable features. The record label did not provide this translation as the screenshot depicts.

Either fire yourselves or roll back this hideous feature.

[ChinHan]

Well, it’s obvious Spotify doesn’t understand the Asian market and specifically the market that listens to Chinese songs! The Chinese diaspora is so wide and all of us come from such varied backgrounds and most of us are at least bilingual with many trilingual. Just because some of us use English as our primary language doesn’t mean we don’t understand Chinese or that we must of necessity prefer to look for titles of Chinese songs in English or pinyin especially in the case of Cantonese songs!!! As a sign of protest, I am boycotting Spotify and listening to YouTube now. 😝

[ChinHan]

IKR??? Some of my favourite Cantonese songs now have unrecognisable names. 😭😭😭😭

[Wl6]

Spotify, please fix this.....