Chinglish

I noticed that engrish.com has a Chinglish section now. For those who don’t know these are English translations in non-English speaking countries and Chinglish is specifically for the ones in China. I thought I’d share some with you. I will try my best to provide you with the correct translation for each.

For each plastic bag wasted, please pay two dollars.

Please ask for assistance.

To keep the restroom clean, please put trash in the trash can.

(This one is actually from Japan but it’s a classic.)

Temporary parking for unloading.

Handicapped.

Main entrance. (No sure how that came about.)

(No idea about this one.)

No cycling or skating. No soccer.

Eight Treasures.

(I guess at least it’s short and to the point.)

Self serving terminal.

(Really “Thunder” will be a good enough translation for this firework.)

Warm milk. (In Chinese the word for “Milk” and “Breast” is the same.)

Automatic flush.

Do not feed the fish with your own food.

Original post>>>

Lost in Translation: The Wild, Wacky & Bizarre World of Chinglish Signs

What is Chinglish?

Chinglish is Chinese poorly translated into English, and makes jokes of everyday matters. These signs are places in Tourist attractions where great amounts of English-Speaking Tourist go to, and they have great laughs at these signs.

Here are many examples that will crack you up.

Read full article>>>

The Etiology and Elaboration of a Flagrant Mistranslation

A series of earlier Language Log posts have discussed the curious phenomenon seen in the grocery-store sign on the left: absurdly crude English mistranslations in bizarrely inappropriate contexts.

In "Gan: whodunnit, and how, and why?" (5/31/2006), I explained one of the sources of this phenomenon: several Chinese characters pronounced GAN1 or GAN4 -- and meaning such widely disparate things as "dry," "calendrical sign," "to do," and much else beside -- all got collapsed into one simplified character: 干. This has led to enormous confusion, especially when people who know next to no English rely on machine translation software to convert Chinese into English. The chaos caused by this combination of circumstances is vastly exacerbated by the fact that this little, three-stroke symbol also has a vulgar meaning when pronounced in the fourth tone, GAN4, namely "fuck," which is probably an extension of the regular sense of "do." Because GAN4 ("do") and GAN1 ("dry") are now both written with that little, three-stroke character, the damage is compounded by the enormous range of intended senses of GAN1/4 ("dry," "do," "act," "work," "undertake," "shield," "have to do with; be concerned with," "edge of a body of water," "be rude, impolite, blunt," "embarrass or annoy," "give the cold-shoulder to," "empty, hollow," measure word for a group of people, "trunk, stem, main part," "cadre," "competent, capable, able, talented," "go bad," "be a disaster," etc.), all of which are capable of coming out of the translation software as "fuck." Read full article>>>

Lost in translation

Chinglish — poorly translated English — is rampant in China. It’s so prevalent that the government has dispatched teams of bloggers and linguists to clean up signs all over Beijing in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Games. The f-word has mysteriously cropped up in many signs, and until now, government officials have been baffled and expats amused. Read full article>>>

Chinese + English = Chinglish

You might like it. This is hilarious ... Even an Englishman could not construct sentences using numeric, which is exclusive only to Malaysians and Singaporeans.

Ah Lek was asked to make a sentence using 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Not only did he do it 1 to 10, he did it again from 10 back to 1. This is what he came up with...

1 day I go 2 climb a 3 outside a house to peep. But the couple saw me, so I panic and 4 down. The man rushed out and wanted to 5 with me.. I ran until I fell 6 and threw up. So I go into 7 -eleven and grabbed some 8 to throw at him. Then I took a 9 and try to stab at him. 10 God he run away.

10 I put the 9 back and pay for the 8 and left 7-eleven. Next day I called my boss and told him I was 6 . He said 5 , tomorrow also no need to come back 4 work. He also asked me to go climb a 3 and jump down. I don't understand. I am so nice 2 him but I don't know what he 1.