A fresh attempt from China to wipe out `Chinglish’ ahead of Beijing Olympics

By Satish Gupta | eTN Asia

As part of preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the local government has launched a campaign to correct and standardize the use of English.

Keen on taking care of `Chinglish’, China has initiated a new campaign to clamp down on bad English in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The local government has launched a campaign to correct and standardize the use of English on public signs as well as in local hotels, shops and government buildings by the end of 2007. Beijing city authorities will issue new translation guides by the end of the year, Xinhua news agency said. The booklets would be handed out to hotels and shopping malls, on public transport and at tourist attractions.
Translation standards for public signs at hotels, shopping malls, tourist spots, bus or subway stations, hospitals, museums, and sports venues will be released by the end of 2006, the government said.

Businesses and government departments then will be given a year to correct language errors on signs, said sources with the foreign affairs office of Beijing municipal government as quoted by Xinhua. Earlier this year, the office established translation standards for road signs in Beijing.

It is acknowledged that earlier attempts to tackle the issue haven’t proved to be fruitful. Often, the mistranslated phrases are seen on Chinese street signs and product labels.

For example, emergency exits at Beijing airport read “No entry on peacetime” and the Ethnic Minorities Park is named “Racist Park”.

In fact, Chinglish has become a running joke among many foreigners in China, and several websites have been set up listing humorous examples of mistranslation. According to media, the mistranslations arise because many Chinese words express concepts obliquely and can be interpreted in multiple ways, making translation a minefield for non-English speakers.

A road sign on Beijing’s Avenue of Eternal Peace warns of a dangerous pavement with the words: “To Take Notice of Safe; The Slippery are Very Crafty”. Menus frequently list items such as “Corrugated iron beef”, “Government abuse chicken” and “Chop the strange fish”.

The municipal government in Beijing first tried to stamp out the problem just a month after being awarded the 2008 Olympics back in 2001. A year later the Beijing Tourism Bureau set up a hotline for visitors and residents to tip off examples of bad English, and said results would be reviewed by a panel of English professors and expatriates, its been reported.

Ends

Printable Version | published Oct 16, 2006

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