Yelp Adds Bing Translation For Reviews In Mobile Apps

Local knowledge is usually the most, er, knowledgeable.

So if you are looking for the best place for tapas in Barcelona, Spain, or the tastiest tacos al pastor in Mexico City, you’d best turn to someone who lives there. Or you can try Yelp, which today announced a handy update to its iPhone app: automated review translation.

The feature, powered by Bing Translator, provides interpretation between the 15 languages that Yelp supports — English, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, French, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish and Japanese. Users can translate one review or all reviews with a tap of a button.

In a blog post announcing the update, Yelp showed an example of a Gellato shop in Milan, Italy (click to enlarge):

The utility is obvious for both travelers and local businesses as Yelp noted:

Although machine-translation is not perfect, it’s a fantastic resource for understanding the overall meaning and context of a review that would otherwise be unavailable to a Yelper who does not speak that language. Use this feature to get a general idea of a reviewer’s experience, but understand that some details may be lost in translation.

The feature was made available today in the Apple store, with an Android update “soon to come.”