I have been in Taiwan for about 18 months. When I first arrived I had major ATM problems. Some had English for half the transaction and then changed to only Chinese half way fhrough. Once or twice I barely saved my card from being swallowed. The problem eased when I discovered the bank ATM in most family marts. This brings up a whole group of options in English including withdrawals. aand transfers. It even saves the details of accounts you transfer to. I am not sure about the name of the bank but receipts have a big s on the top.
Today I used the machine in my local store and the interface had changed to Chinese only
I am not sure if this is a permanent change in all the family mart machines or just some temporary problem in my store. Usually if an interface changed on one computer it changes on all of them. It could have been some kind of temporary safe mode.
Anyone know what is going on? The bank is the same because the receipt issuedw as the same.
Honestly? You’re probably going to need to learn Chinese. Taiwan is far from being a bilingual country and for many things, English is an afterthought or just something to look cool and hip with the locals.
Since this is probably not as helpful as you would like. I would suggest that you have a local help you with your transaction and practise which buttons are which when memorising the ATM UI or have a glossary on hand to see what things mean.
Google Translate also offers camera support to translate on the fly.
Thanks
As you say it is not what I asked
I am sure I am not the only person who has been happily using these machines in Family Mart. Did all the interfaces suddenly change from bilingual to only Chinese?
They’re just simply at most, lip service to internationalisation with bosses not willing to pay more money than they have to. The best is probably the Chinatrust ATMs but best is misleading. Its number one amongst mediocrity. Number 2 IMO would probably be the Cathay ATMs.
I learned Chinese to get around these issues. But when I was at your level of Chinese, my strategy was memorise the buttons.
I myself haven’t come across an ATM without an English option in quite a long time, and I use the 7-11/Family Mart ones a lot. I did notice the interface had changed a couple of days ago at the Family Mart ATM by my house, but there is still an English option.
FamilyMart has changed. All the icons have been changed to super cute versions as well, which doesn’t help. The “you need to learn Chinese” solution is a little long term, so in the short term I’d recommend going to 7-Eleven instead.
vi
I am not sure I would trust the memorization of buttons and Chinese words. That is why this bi lingual interface has been so useful
I have several account.numbers stored that I have sent money to before…like my landlord.
All I do is tap the number and write the amount. It is going to cause me quite a lot of headaches if it suddenly disappeared. I am sure a lot of you have used this ATM in Family.mart that immediately brings up a lot of English options in red
I know three of them in Family.marts near here but will not be able to get to the other 2 tonight. Is anyone still happily using these bilingual machines now? Feel free to philosophies in general but this is a practical question for me.
Well thanks for the input
Receipts come out of the machine with a big white S on top
Is that RTaishin? I will need to ask some colleagues
If anyone is sure about this feel free to add input and much appreciated.
