Swapit is all about bringing people together. We’ve always been about removing barriers and with this release, Swapit buyers can chat with sellers across 100 different languages. It’s easy, instant, helps sellers close their sale and buyers get what they really want.
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We’ve created the easiest way you can imagine, to communicate with someone who does not speak your language. It’s a free feature in Swapit and has just been rolled out across the globe in our iPhone and Android apps.
How Chat Translations Work
When you receive a chat message in a language you do not speak, you will now see a small “See Translation” button right next to that chat message. When you tap it, we translate that chat message into your own language and show it to you. This is how it may look like:
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- Not translated.
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- Translated to English.
Furthermore, let’s see how it looks for different chat partners.
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- Chat what the seller (Patrick) sees, who only speaks English and German.
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- Chat what the buyer (Couchpotato) sees, who only speaks Chinese and Tagalog.
The translations are not perfect, but they are sufficient to get the gist of it. They help buyers to communicate with sellers who do not speak their language. It’s something many of our users have asked for and we really like to listen and act on our user feedback. Thanks again to all of our loyal Swapit users! You really rock!
More Information While You Chat
In any chat window you might have with a buyer or a seller, you now see a re-designed header, which shows you the item the chat is about and your chat partner. At the same time, we now also show you whether it’s an item you’re selling and what languages your chat partner is speaking.
Languages which you speak and your chat partner speaks, are highlighted. So it’s easy for you to determine, that you two can actually communicate in the language you have in common.
How Swapit Knows About My Language
We introduced a new language setting in your user profile. When you launch your app for the first time, Swapit reads the language you have set your phone to, and sets it in Swapit as a language you speak. That’s the language, chat messages will be translated to when you hit the “See Translation” button.
In your profile you can also add additional languages you speak. That will help us identify matches between the languages you speak and your chat partner speaks. There is no upper limit to the number of languages you can add here. So even the Pope with his 7 spoken languages can join us!
Sale Posts In Your Language
In fact, we did not just improve chats. We’ve also added a more flexible setting when you’re posting items for sale. Up until recently, it was only possible to choose manually whether the item you post is in Chinese or in English. Now, you can choose any language you like. Similarly, the first time the post item screen opens, Swapit reads the language setting from the phone and sets that as a default language for the item you’re posting. We just assume you also post in the language you are using in your phone.
This language setting helps us sort through content on Swapit on a global scale.
Filter Items By Languages – Globally
Swapit is being used in dozens of countries and many different people with different nationalities who speak different languages are using it every day. When you open Swapit, you’ll automatically a list of items listed and you can jump right into them. Due to our standard search order setting of “by Distance”, all such items were posted nearby, which makes them most relevant to you.
Yet, in Swapit you’re also able to filter those items by language. Especially in multi-cultural cities like Hong Kong or in border areas, this is a very useful feature. Personally, my Chinese reading skills are very limited, so I do prefer item posts in English or German. So I can adjust this to my liking and only the items where I can read the title and description.
We’ve built a smart filter in this, though. Instead offering users to choose their languages of the item list out of the 100 languages we support, we offer you exactly the choices of languages, which are actually available by the current list of items. For example, if there are only items in the current result list, which are in English or Chinese, then you’ll be able to choose only between those two languages in the filter setting. It’s a quick one-tap switch to switch one language off.
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