Shanghai was an interesting choice of location for the FIT conference. I must say that China does not seem to be a country that places much emphasis on professional translations.
One of my particular interests is bad menu translations. Here are a few of the items I saw in China:
beef pulls noodle
frying without adding anything shrimp
sheet iron Germany salty pig's hoof
liquor rice with mini-bums
the seafood is harsh
cowboy bone
fried how delicious crab
vegetarian ham
the tea tree mushroom roasts the winter bamboo shoot
syrup carbon fever pork
social beef
marinated three white
vermicille with wild fangs
soft-shelled turtled cooks ox whip
peaceful is big prawn
characteristic fish gluten
crab ovary
the chinese flowering quince the clam gentlemen frog
sichuan taste gluttonous frog
crosses the bridge spare ribs
pot pan
sandwich calcium cake
fragrant tasty entry
best tasty
high fly pizza
crystal-like cake
On tour buses, I repeatedly heard “Don’t leave your values on the bus.” And I saw the motto “We service you whole-heartedly” throughout the country. I just wonder if that whole-hearted service really extends to translation. I think many people in China left their translation skills on the bus.
Finds for Writers
4 hours ago
6 comments:
I was recently in China and I was also surprised at just how bad some of the English was. Between all the Chinese people who must have surely grown up bilingual in America, as well as the British influence in Hong Kong and Singapore, you would think they should have access to a good pool of skilled Chinese-English translators.
Thank you for your comment!
I tried to remember that China has only been more "open" for the past 20ish years, so their English skills are not quite up there with those in other nations, but I was still dismayed by the English. Even many of the Chinese volunteers at the international translation conference weren't so good at English!
Best wishes,
BJ
Hi, great language blog you have here! Would you be interested in doing a link exchange? Just send me an e-mail (learnthatlanguagenow (at) gmail.com) with your URL and I'll add your link to my blog. You can add my link as "Learn That Language Now". I look forward to reading more blog entries from you. Thanks!
-Robbie
BJ, I love your menu findings. They invariably make me laugh.
LOL about the bad menu translations!
Thanks!
The worst thing is to translate from Chenglish.
Alexander - www.alba-translating.ru
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