It turns out English speakers aren't the only ones tickled by so-called Chinglish.
Shenzhen netizens recently took to mocking some strangely phrased signage at, of all places, Longgang District People's Court.
Though far from the strangest we've seen, the translations were pretty awkward, making one courtroom sound tiny...
...and apparently giving up when it came to another one.
Online commenters accused the court of resorting to Netease Youdao or Baidu Translate, although, as it turns out, that probably would have made things worse.
We're pretty sure 'tachycutting' is not a word
On Monday, Weibo user 富平一鸣 published a particularly pointed post, asking "If a clerk is punished when a citation is written incorrectly, is the chief judge punished when a department name is written incorrectly? Such a lofty court name was translated into something like this!"
Longgang District People's Court responded later that day, revealing that the Chinglish signs had been installed on Sunday evening by an ad company. The errors were discovered the next morning and the signs were sent back to be fixed on Monday afternoon.
Although this particular debacle wrapped up quickly, the fight against Chinglish has been going on for much longer (since the Qing Dynasty, some might say). Last year Shenzhen's government launched a public campaign to fix odd signage around the city, while Beijing recently announced a similar effort. Even a European translation firm got in on the act, with an ad campaign featuring cringeworthy Chinglish. Lots of it.
With an abundance of English translations in its restaurants, shops, roads, public places and tourist sites, China faces an uphill battle. Given some of the gems that result, though, that might not always be a bad thing.
READ MORE: 20 of China's Most Outrageous T-Shirts
[Images via Southern Metropolis Daily, The Drum]
0 User Comments