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

[becausepancakes]

i want to know why spotify thought it was a good idea to not make this optional or fixable. what was their reasoning. how do they not see the inherent problem in making songs/artists/lyrics inaccessible to listeners

[ashie99]

It’s been many days and no response from Spotify? -__- I contacted support and was told I had to change my country/locale in order to see chinese music in the chinese language - which is frankly ridiculous. With such a tone deaf (non) response from Spotify, I’m inclined to switch over to competitors the moment the month ends. With this change, it’s nice to know where Spotify’s priorities actually lie!

[ashie99]

Because they believe what they are doing is making songs and artists accessible to listeners… albeit only a certain kind ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[WhitneyLai]

I would quit my membership if this situation Is not fixed by this month. If Spotify wants to improve the user experience by implementing personalisation, get the right employees to do it. Everybody knows Hongkongers can understand both Chinese and English. Completely not neccessary to translate it for us. It'd only cause us troubles.

[FatPenguin2]

Spotify is deaf.. Despite numerous users contacting support and this thread being  one of the most activity on their own forum, it seems the company have only provided BS responses and no moderator have made any attempt to help the community. 

Time to jump ship to Youtube music or KKBOX everyone! Maybe when Spotify sees a sudden drop in users and revenue in the Asian markets, then they will start to listen. 

Remember we users are sticking with you because you wer the  first major player the market.  Many stuck with you because we have been too lazy to change.  Thank you for giving us the motivation to seek better services.

[adamgotacall]

This recent change has rendered Spotify completely unusable for listening to Chinese and Japanese songs.

I will be switching to a competing music streaming service if this doesn't get fixed by my next billing cycle.

[kryptonika]

Still not a peep from the two moderators I contacted a few days ago. Like the others, I will give this a month, but I am not holding my breath. What a shame.

[dansleble]

I contacted spotify support and they said they are working to revert this. Just not sure how long it would take...

[marcocal3]

This "change" just ruined all Cantonese song titles in my English OS PC and Android phone. Can't even know which song is it when reading the translated names in the albums. 

[user-removed]

Same issue for me. This is entirely a deal breaker. 

I am from Hong Kong and I set my Spotify app language to English. It turns out that some of the Cantonese/Mandarin songs have their song titles becoming English or Mandarin pinyin. It is really annoying for the below reasons:-

1. Firstly, it is very difficult to search for the songs. I understand that some English song names are provided by the CD company, but they are just simply unrecognisable, not to mention that they do not bear the same meaning of the original song name. Also, given I am a native Cantonese speaker, I have no idea what the Mandarin pinyin means. I have difficulty in identifying the songs that I want to listen to.
2. Secondly, and more importantly, this policy is just undermining the value and significance of the Asian languages. I have heard that the reasons why your company has decided to launch this policy is to localise the song names. Yet it is so ill-conceived in the sense that not every users would want their song names to appear in the app language. The fact that we set a certain language for the application does not mean that we want the song names to appear in that language too. Now this policy is very disappointing because it is a disrespect to the composers of the songs who put their efforts in giving the song a good title in their native language. Even worse, it is also a disrespect to the Asian languages. For example, Canto-pop songs are never pronounced in Mandarin pinyin. English/ Mandarin pinyin can never express the same meaning. 

As a Spotify user who has been using your service for 7 years, I earnestly hope that you will consider doing the following actions:-

1. Change back to the original setting; display the song titles in the native language. 
2. If it is because of the localisaiton policy, please at least provide an option for the user to choose. I am pretty sure the audiences in the Chinese community do not welcome this policy because it causes so much inconvenience. 

Thank you.

[leon819]

Please fix this Spotify! This has become so confusing. I just want to see the original titles!

When I set the language as English, it translates Chinese songs to English/Pinyin, which is ridiculous and non-sense.

When I set the language as Chinese, it translates some English songs to Chinese, also confusing. 

Could you just add an option for us to turn off this automatic translation, please? 

[mmwong]

I have the same issue, please fix!

[Balljai]

Not the first time Spotify makes change WITHOUT asking for feedback or suggestions 

[MrHan]

well, the change to English was quite fast. this better not take more than a month. 

[ChungLam]

The phonetic titles are very annoying. The best is to display the original song title or a option to let the user select to display original language.

[ziperlol]

Please fix it as soon as possible

[Vasil]

Hey folks!

In connection to the recent test for the way multilingual data is used - we are working to revert the translated titles!
The change should be reflected soon 🙂
Clear your cache if you continue to experience issues.
Thanks & cheers!

[adamgotacall]

Will this rollback also fix translated Artist names?

For example, I would much prefer to see names in their original languages like 周杰倫 or 陶喆 instead of Jay Chou or David Tao.

[sfai05]

+ 1 For having a options to display artist name / song title in the native language instead of app interface language

[Red_blue_orange]

Hey. While you're at it, could you also keep in mind to keep the titles in playback history in the original language as well. This issue has been prevalent since a long time where the song titles might be displayed in original language but the ones in playback history are written in english. And also revert back artists names to original language as well. For example it would be better to see 東山奈央 instead of changing it to nao toyama.