托德:好。梅格,我們來談?wù)勛》?。你知道,現(xiàn)在有許多人在旅行時(shí)選擇租房。人們不是住酒店,而是會租房。你聽說過Airbnb嗎?
Meg: Yeah, I have heard of it. I've looked at the website a couple of times. Do they have Airbnb where you're from?
梅格:我聽說過。我瀏覽過這個(gè)網(wǎng)站幾次。Airbnb服務(wù)覆蓋你家鄉(xiāng)嗎?
Todd: They do. They actually do have Airbnb in San Francisco but I have not used it in San Francisco, I've only used it actually traveling in other countries. I used it Thailand and I was going to use it in Japan but I ended up – I couldn't use it because of the travel problems but yeah.
托德:有,Airbnb在舊金山有房源,不過我在舊金山?jīng)]有用過Airbnb,我只會在其他國家旅行時(shí)使用Airbnb找房源。我在泰國時(shí)用Airbnb找過房子,我本來打算在日本時(shí)也使用Airbnb,可是因?yàn)槁眯兄械囊恍﹩栴},我沒能用到Airbnb的服務(wù)。
Meg: So how does it work?
梅格:要怎么使用Airbnb的服務(wù)?
Todd: Basically, what it works is if somebody owns a house, they can rent out a room. And so, you find a house online and then you book it with the scheduling system online. And then you pay Airbnb the money and then the people let you stay in their house.
托德:基本上來說,就是房主出租房屋。你在找房子時(shí)可以使用Airbnb網(wǎng)站的在線調(diào)度系統(tǒng)預(yù)訂房子。然后你付錢給Airbnb,房主就會讓你住在他們出租的房子里。
Meg: What are the cost usually? Is it expensive?
梅格:通常來說費(fèi)用是多少?貴嗎?
Todd: It can be really cheap or really expensive. You have both ends. I mean, sometimes you can just rent a room and sometimes, you can actually rent the whole house. So, you know – and now, in places like Thailand or other places in Southeast Asia, what they do is a lot of condominiums now are kind of turning into mini-hotels. So rather than try to find long-term tenants, they just search for – or they just rent out their apartments on Airbnb.
托德:可以很便宜,也可以很貴。便宜的房子和貴的房子都有。有時(shí)你可以只租一個(gè)房間,有時(shí)你可以租到整個(gè)房子。像泰國和其他東南亞國家有很多共管公寓,現(xiàn)在這些公寓正在逐漸轉(zhuǎn)型為迷你酒店。房主不是在找長期房客,而是將公寓租給Airbnb。
Meg: Right. Well, it sounds like a good way to stay some place you haven't been before.
梅格:好。聽起來這是在你沒去過的地方生活的一個(gè)好方法。
Todd: It is good. I mean, when I used it in Thailand, what I liked about it was you feel like you have a real, you know, you have real roots there. You're not in the hotel so nobody is kind of intruding on you or nobody is coming to clean your room everyday. So you feel like you have more privacy and you feel like you really live in the place. And usually, the apartments are in real neighborhoods so they're not in touristy areas. So there are definitely some advantages.
托德:是很好。我在泰國用Airbnb找房源時(shí),我喜歡那種扎根于那里的感覺。不住在酒店里,就不會有人來打擾你,或是每天來給你打掃房間。這樣你會有更多的隱私,你會感覺到你生活在那個(gè)地方。一般來說,出租的公寓位于真正的社區(qū),并不是在旅游景點(diǎn)。所以有一定的好處。
Meg: Would you say that it's safe?
梅格:你指的是安全嗎?
Todd: Yeah. I guess that's the biggest concern. It seems to be safe. I mean, from what I see – although there was an interesting case recently in California where they've had problems of squatters. And a squatter...
托德:對。我想那是人們最關(guān)心的問題??雌饋砗馨踩?。在我看來……不過最近加州發(fā)生了一些值得反思的案件,有人擅自占用他人的房子。
Meg: What are squatters?
梅格:什么意思?
Todd: A squatter is somebody who, they take the Airbnb house and then they just never leave.
托德:就是有些人租住了Airbnb提供的房子后,就不再離開。
Meg: Oh.
梅格:哦。
Todd: Yeah. And then they're hard to evict. So that was one interesting thing. And then also, recently, the company has been in the news because people that have low-income housing, like government subsidized housing, they've been trying to rent out their apartments on Airbnb.
托德:對。而且很難把他們趕出去。這是一件值得注意的事情。另外,最近Airbnb上了新聞,原因是一些保障性住房,就是政府補(bǔ)貼住房的房主想把公寓出租給Airbnb。
Meg: On Airbnb.
梅格:在Airbnb上出租。
Todd: And then the city or the government said, "Hey, you can't do that because we give you this house at a discount to help you because you're low income. So you can't use it to make a profit." So it's been a very debatable situation.
托德:可是市政府說,“嘿,你們不能這樣做,因?yàn)檎谀銈冑I房時(shí)提供了折扣,你們是低收入人群,所以我們提供了幫助。所以你們不能用房子來營利。”這是一個(gè)備受爭議的情況。
Meg: Yeah. I guess it's kind of like double dipping.
梅格:嗯。那就像雙重獲利一樣。
Todd: Yeah.
托德:對。
Meg: You're getting discount or paid in a way to live there and then you want to get paid more. So it sounds like a problem.
梅格:你在買房時(shí)獲得了優(yōu)惠,然后你還想獲利更多。聽起來的確是個(gè)問題。
Todd: Yeah. So what do you think? Would you be interested in doing something like Airbnb?
托德:對。你怎么看?你對Airbnb這種服務(wù)感興趣嗎?
Meg: Yeah. I definitely think so. After researching a place, maybe if I have a lot of pictures and it seemed clear that it would be safe, yeah, I think I'd like to do it.
梅格:感興趣。我非常喜歡這種服務(wù)。在研究過一個(gè)地方以后,如果我掌握了很多照片,而且那里看起來干凈又安全的話,我想我會想租住的。
Todd: And actually their website is fantastic. Like if you go to their website, you can, let's say, choose a house in Paris or Madrid or whatever. And then they often have like the Google street cam thing so you can see what the house looks like on the inside. And then you could actually do the rotating camera and see what the neighborhood looks like. And then everybody leaves reviews about the owner and about their stay there, so you'd get a good feel about what the place is like. So it's kind of a new way to travel, and it's kind of cool.
托德:實(shí)際上,我認(rèn)為這個(gè)網(wǎng)站非常棒。假設(shè)你在Airbnb網(wǎng)站上選擇巴黎或馬德里的房子。然后你可以通過谷歌的街景相機(jī)看到房子里面的情況。你還可以通過旋轉(zhuǎn)式照相機(jī)看到社區(qū)周圍的情況。在那所房子住過的人會對房主進(jìn)行評價(jià),這樣你就可以了解那所房子怎么樣。這是一種旅行的新方式,一種非??岬姆绞健?/p>
Meg: Yeah. It sounds interesting especially the reviews. I think knowing someone else has had a good experience, I would definitely be interested in doing it.
梅格:對。聽起來很有趣,而且還有評價(jià)可以參考。我認(rèn)為,在知道有人在那所房子里有美好的體驗(yàn)之后,我一定會更感興趣。
Todd: Yeah, definitely.
托德:對,絕對會。