I ENCOURAGE MY STUDENTS TO SPEAK CHINGLISH TO HELP THEM OVERCOME THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF THE 4 GREAT LIES. HOWEVER, WRITTEN CHINGLISH PUTS A BAD FACE ON CHINA AND SHOULD BE CORRECTED. WRITTEN CHINGLISH IS FOR FOREIGNERS VISITING CHINA, NOT FOR LOCAL PEOPLE. WRITTEN CHINGLISH CAUSES GREAT HARM TO CHINA’S GLOBAL IMAGE. BEFORE THE OLYMPICS ALL WRITTEN CHINGLISH WAS ELIMINATED IN BEIJING. THIS THREAD IS INTENDED TO EXPOSE WRITTEN CHINGLISH WHEREVER IT IS FOUND, SO IT MAY BE CORRECTED TO SAVE CHINA’S GLOBAL FACE.
When you see Chinglish anywhere in China, this is the place to share it!
When you see funny English signs anywhere in China, this is the place to share it.
Shanghai Is Trying to Untangle the Mangled English of Chinglish
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: May 2, 2010
SHANGHAI — For English speakers with subpar Chinese skills, daily life in China offers a confounding array of choices. At banks, there are machines for “cash withdrawing” and “cash recycling.” The menus of local restaurants might present such delectables as “fried enema,” “monolithic tree mushroom stem squid” and a mysterious thirst-quencher known as “The Jew’s Ear Juice.”
Go ahead and snicker, although by last Saturday’s opening of the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, drawing more than 70 million visitors over its six-month run, these and other uniquely Chinese maladaptations of the English language were supposed to have been largely excised.
Well, that at least is what the Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use has been trying to accomplish during the past two years.
Fortified by an army of 600 volunteers and a politburo of adroit English speakers, the commission has fixed more than 10,000 public signs (farewell “Teliot” and “urine district”), rewritten English-language historical placards and helped hundreds of restaurants recast offerings.
The campaign is partly modeled on Beijing’s herculean effort to clean up English signage for the 2008 Summer Olympics, which led to the replacement of 400,000 street signs, 1,300 restaurant menus and such exemplars of impropriety as the Dongda Anus Hospital — now known as the Dongda Proctology Hospital. Gone, too, is Racist Park, a cultural attraction that has since been rechristened Minorities Park.
“The purpose of signage is to be useful, not to be amusing,” said Zhao Huimin, the former Chinese deputy consul general to the United States who, as director general of the capital’s Foreign Affairs Office, has been leading the fight for linguistic standardization and sobriety.
But while the war on mangled English may be considered a signature achievement of government officials, aficionados of what is known as Chinglish are wringing their hands in despair.
Oliver Lutz Radtke, a former German radio reporter who may well be the world’s foremost authority on Chinglish, said he believed that China should embrace the fanciful melding of English and Chinese as the hallmark of a dynamic, living language. As he sees it, Chinglish is an endangered species that deserves preservation.
“If you standardize all these signs, you not only take away the little giggle you get while strolling in the park but you lose a window into the Chinese mind,” said Mr. Radtke, who is the author of a pair of picture books that feature giggle-worthy Chinglish signs in their natural habitat.
Lest anyone think it is all about laughs, Mr. Radtke is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Chinglish at the University of Heidelberg.
Still, the enemies of Chinglish say the laughter it elicits is humiliating. Wang Xiaoming, an English scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, painfully recalls the guffaws that erupted among her foreign-born colleagues as they flipped through a photographic collection of poorly written signs. “They didn’t mean to insult me but I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable,” said Ms. Wang, who has since become one of Beijing’s leading Chinglish slayers.
Those who study the roots of Chinglish say many examples can be traced to laziness and a flawed but wildly popular translation software. Victor H. Mair, a professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, said the computerized dictionary, Jinshan Ciba, had led to sexually oriented vulgarities identifying dried produce in Chinese supermarkets and the regrettable “fried enema” menu selection that should have been rendered as “fried sausage.”
Although improved translation software and a growing zeal for grammatically unassailable English has slowed the output of new Chinglishisms, Mr. Mair said he still received about five new examples a day from people who knew he was good at deciphering what went wrong. “If someone would pay me to do it, I’d spend my life studying these things,” he said.
Among those getting paid to wrestle with Chinglish is Jeffrey Yao, an English translator and teacher at the Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation at Shanghai International Studies University who is leading the sign exorcism. But even as he eradicates the most egregious examples by government fiat — businesses dare not ignore the commission’s suggested fixes — he has mixed feelings, noting that although some Chinglish phrases sound awkward to Western ears, they can be refreshingly lyrical. “Some of it tends to be expressive, even elegant,” he said, shuffling through an online catalog of signs that were submitted by the volunteers who prowled Shanghai with digital cameras. “They provide a window into how we Chinese think about language.”
Slide Show 
He offered the following example: While park signs in the West exhort people to “Keep Off the Grass,” Chinese versions tend to anthropomorphize nature as a way to gently engage the stomping masses. Hence, such admonishments as “The Little Grass Is Sleeping. Please Don’t Disturb It” or “Don’t Hurt Me. I Am Afraid of Pain.”
Mr. Yao read off the Chinese equivalents as if savoring a Shakespearean sonnet. “How lovely,” he said with a sigh.
He pointed out that this linguistic mentality helped create such expressions as “long time no see,” a word-for-word translation of a Chinese expression that became a mainstay of spoken English. But Mr. Yao, who spent nearly two decades working as a translator in Canada, has his limits. He showed a sign from a park designed to provide visitors with the rules for entry, which include prohibitions on washing, “scavenging,” clothes drying and public defecation, all of it rendered in unintelligible — and in the case of the last item — rather salty English. The sign ended with this humdinger: “Because if the tourist does not obey the staff to manage or contrary holds, Does, all consequences are proud.”
Even though he had had the sign corrected recently, Mr. Yao could not help but shake his head in disgust at the memory. And he was irritated to find that a raft of troublesome sign verbiage had slipped past the commission as the expo approached, including a cafeteria sign that read, “The tableware reclaims a place.” (Translation: drop off dirty dishes here.)
“Some Chinglish expressions are nice, but we are not translating literature here,” he said. “I want to see people nodding that they understand the message on these signs. I don’t want to see them laughing.”
It is naturally that you make mistakes while using a foreign language. You grow up in your county, speak dialect, and not go aboard, so you don’t totally understand the culture of other country which seems so far. Million of college students are speaking Chinglish, let alone those who never enter university. Maybe some foreigners laugh at Chinglish, but I wonder how many foreigners can speak fluent Chinese even though they had lived in china for many years. Foreigners should be grateful they can find familiar word (maybe just letters) rather than only Chinese version. Someone may think I am radical. I just don’t think Chinglish should be to blame. Anyway we should improve our English, not for the sake of foreigners, but for our own benefit.
As the professor said, there was no Standard English. English used by one country is engraved with its culture, so you can see American English, British English, Chinglish, Singlish, and so on. And they make the world colorful, too. Therefore, you can see some funny Chinglish in China. Such as, “Good good study, day day up”, “Let me see see”, “People mountain people sea” and so on. Besides, some Chinglish signs can also be found. “Slip carefully”, which English should be “Be careful not to slip and fall.” I think Chinglish is quite common in our daily life, and maybe even some of my written English is Chinglish.
Some translations are not good enough. Such as Jiang nan xi and Xin gang dong, which are both the name of the subway. But I think maybe west and east should be translated.
And there is a sentence “Smoking prohibited!” on the subway, but maybe” No smoking!” is clear.
Not just on the railway, sometimes, we use Chinglish in our daily life. On an English class, the teacher asked one of my classmates to answer an question. She stood up and said:” Let me see see!” All of us laughed.
Another day, I said “thank you” to my friend for helping me. And his answer was “No thank you! No thank you!”
I think it is difficult to learn a foreign languish well, we should overcome many obstacles. So it is more difficult to learn foreigner’s thinking way. Most of us grow up in China. And the English teachers are also Chinese. Everywhere are reads Chinglish. In fact, as for foreigner who works in China many years, he seldom spoke standard Chinese well. Of course, we should learn from the foreigner. We can try our best to communicate with them.
Chinglish is not so bad in China, even though sometimes it is very funny and can’t be understood by foreigners. There are several reasons for it. Chinese used to think and talk in the logic of Chinese. They first express in Chinese, and then translate it into English.
But the habit of communicate in Chinglish can be changed. First we can read more English original literature and articles; we can talk with native American or British. What’s more, we should consciously force ourselves to talk and think in English way. Only in this way can we use English more perfect.
As the professor said in the first class, Chinglish is allowed when we are learning English. It is difficult for foreigners to speak native English. While there is no Chinglish, there is no progress. So even there are many funny occassions when Chinglish appears, it is advisable to insist on what we want to express. Chinglish is of no shame!
As the professor said in the first class, Chinglish is allowed when we are learning English. It is difficult for foreigners to speak native English. While there is no Chinglish, there is no progress. So even there are many funny occassions when Chinglish appears, it is advisable to insist on what we want to express. Chinglish is of no shame!
Today I had lunch at the Fifth Canteen at school. There was a piece of small poster stick on each dinning table. They were about the propagation of the 16th Asian Games which will be held in Guangzhou this November. They were made by the student union of Ling Nan College. I had a look at the English on it and found there were so many mistakes in translation. It’s just unbelievable! In my opinion, Ling Nan College is generally considered as an excellent college in SYSU. But to my surprise, it made so idiotic mistakes in the public. In fact, many people do not know the pure English but do not treat it seriously. They just hold on an attitude of SO-SO. It’s extremely wrong. We should pay much attention at this phenomenon and endure the corrupt custom as soon as possible.
It’s very easy to see funny Chinglish words in our daily life, such as on the bus, in the park, or other public places. These phenomenons always result from translating rigidly or culture shock.Some people may look down upon them. However, they ignore that the sinificance of learning language is to communicate. If we can understand the meaning, there’s nothing wrong. We’d better absorb the essence and discard the dross.
Chinglish is very common in China. In fact, it brings us more conveniences rather than troubles in many occasions. I remember Martin has told us a story in his lecture. He said Rui Chenggang has spoken non-standard English in his programs occasionally. Since he also makes mistakes, it is acceptable for ordinary Chinese English speakers speak Chinglish.
Moreover, most foreigners can understand Chinglish in many occasions. However, everything may go to extreme. I remember a piece of news from internet which reports that a view spot translates the capital of Guizhou province “Guiyang” into “expensive sun”. That must be a joke!
In my opinion, we should treat chinglish with a usual mind. It is just a common thing. Sometimes we make mistakes when we use our mother tongue. But it is really bring people troubles. To some degree, it’s also the reflection of a country’s comprehensive quality. So we should adopt correct attitude.
In fact ,I don’t think Chinglish can’t be accepted. As you said in the first class, because we are live in China, we speak Chinglish. If we live in Japan, we may speak Japlish.
With the developing of China, more and more people come here with their language and culture. Of cause, the foreigners use their native language. We should respect other countries’ languages, so we study them and use them. When we studying them, we have our opinions. So Chinglish comes about. More and more foreigners understand Chinglish and begin to use Chinglish to communicate with Chinese. In my opinion, that’s maybe do in rome, and do romans do.
Chinglish and Chinese English is widespread around China. So ,you often hear the similar expression that words is full of Chinese special things .And I still remember the story :there were two men who want to learn English together in the morning ,then they made a promise to each other one day. One of the man said at the evening :if you get up early ,you call me ;if I get up early ,I call you ;but we both don’t get up early, who call us ?
Yes, it is Chinglish and though that’s so funny. However, we should always remember that communication is important in the process of learning new language, because practices makes perfect.
As known, Chinglish is allowed in China by Chinese learner. I heard a sentence is “Chinglish is of on shame.” I also like to speak Chinglish. But we also know that it has many shortcoming .IF we do not overcome these ,we will not use English well.
As the four great lies mentioned, we are taught that “the only way to improve your English is speaking to native speaker, chinglish is no good”. These requirements have affected us greatly, since we first got in touch with English. Under these standards we just feel pressure and our target is to passing the examination. And under the traditional education it means that if you can’t pronounce rightly, you will be laughed at. SO we are afraid to speak English due to our poor oral English and no native speaker to practice with. Your attitude will decide your results. So it is always that we can get very high score in the examination, but we can’t speak freely and fluently. Our brain is filled with vocabulary, grammar, set phrases etc, but we always find it difficult to open our mouth or find out some appropriate word to express our meaning. It’s a pity. Now it’s time for us to change our traditional thought. We can speak chinglish freely and no one will laugh at you. Just like in the first class the teacher taught us “steel sharpens steel”. Now both I and my roommate agree on that we try to communicate with each other in our chinglish. We believe if we can open our mouth, we will make a progress no matter we speak chinglish or English. It’s more difficult to practice than to say. But we will try our best.
Though Chinglish is allowed in the professor’s class, I try my best to express myself in English. Firstly, In our daily chat, Chinglish is OK. While in the Written English, English is better. Therefore, it is better for us to make ourselves get into the habit of speaking English rather than Chinese.Secondly, Among the English-speaking countries in the world, most people know nothing about Chinglish. If we speak Chinglish to them, perhaps they can’t get our ideas. In that case, troubles would come.
A local person who want to learn foreign language should use the right way, especially use this open way ,as a Chinese student, we should try to make it better when other country can see it, let the foreign understand it you should have the right spell .so it is necessary use an tool to correct the spell. a good way to help our poor spell and increase the quantity words of us.
CHINGLISH is so common in China; we can hear and see it everywhere, from menu in the restaurants to talking shows on television. No matter how long have you studied English, you just can not use it as skillful as a foreigner. We are often influenced by our Mather tongue when talking in a second language. The problem is whether we should pay a number of attentions to correct our utterance when the other can roughly understand our meanings.
It seems to me that everything should be finished as perfect as possible, take English speaking for example, I can talk with my foreign friend with poor English, because they are familiar with the language, and can correct my pronunciation and confused graph in their minds, then finally get the approximate ideas. But when I talk with a Chinese student or some other English-second-language student, it will be a hard time for both of us; we may talk about the different stories when we thought it was the same one. So in my narrow mind, it is necessary to make a great effort in correcting our written and spoken CHINGLISH.
It is the same as other languages in the world that written English is more official than oral English. Since we are encouraged to speak Chinglish in class, we should pay more attention to our written English in the web. Oral Chinglish is a way against that we were taught during the last twelve years and makes us to speak English bravely. But it doesn’t mean the written Chinglish is also welcomed. Conversely, it does great harm to China’s public face. Also it is something to do with one’s attitude about learning English. Maybe we are tired of the twelve-year-English learning, but that’s not the excuse to ignore the importance of a good habit of spelling our written English correctly.
In our daily lives, we often use chinglish. Chinglish appears in our writing, translation even the directions or service guidance. I think that we have to overcome this problem in order to improve our English. During my the process of learning English, I would try my best to do better. In fact, everyone in China should pay much attention to this problem.
I do not think saying Chinglish is losing my face, maybe my chinglish is not so good compared with people who live in UK or USA, but at least I can express myself. And I am trying my best to make my English better. I believe I can say English fluently and standard if I can keep learning and practicing.
As to the relationship between English and our nation’ face, there are not any direct connection between them. What we should learn from the Olympic in Beijing should be that we have many spaces to improve, and we have some misunderstandings in learning English in the past years, we should find them and amend them.
Well, here I share some Chinglish with you: “Beijing’s winning the bid for the Olympics makes our blood boil”, which means “Beijing’s winning the bid for the Olympics makes us excited.”
This one is more interesting: “Although other people never take her seriously, she is the pearl on her father’s hand at home” which means “Although other people never take her seriously, she is the apple of her father’s eye at home.” I am sure most Chinese students understand what it means.
We say “It’s ten o’clock. Get up, lazy worm!”, actually we want to convey that “It’s ten o’clock. Get up, lazy bones!”
It is quite interesting , isn’t it?
Professor Martin is leaving, and I don’t know the reason why. I admit that I didn’t read much and neither of my comments on this websit. But I feel my English has improved a lot this semester, so I thank him and I will miss him. Wishing him a good trip around this country and the world. He really had done a very wonderful great work.
Chinglish is popular in China. We can see many of Chinglish expressions on the signs. It is funny and interesting for the Chinese. But for the foreigners, it is difficult to understand.Even sometimes they would misunderstand the meanings and make some ridiculous mistakes. In my opinion, Chinglish don’t have to be prohibited everywhere. But if we want to make others understand, like the signs, we had better use English. Just like Mr.Yao says, “Some Chinglish expressions are nice, I want to see people nodding that they understand the message on these signs. I don’t want to see them laughing.”
When mentioning –nglish, like Chinglish, Indianglish, Japanglish, ect. It means English words that have been co-opted into a new vernacular, often incorrectly; English terms or names that have been localized for use.
In my opinion, we do need the so-called “Standard English” to judge whether one’s pronunciation of and skill in using a nonnative language is good enough, effective enough, smooth enough to make her/him understood by others. For example, two Chinese having chats will find no difficulty in understanding each other. That’s because their “Chinese culture and body language” part makes up the missing information due to English speaking. But try to image that, two guys of different nationalities. Like an Indian and a Japanese, when they chat with each other, the Indian speaks Indianglish, the Japanese speaks Japanglish, both of them have a really heavy Indian/Japanese accent. How could they have an effect, smooth and happy chat with each other?
My point is there should be some standard in improve our pronunciation for the sake of having a more smooth communication with each other from other countries. What’s more, we shouldn’t feel shamed to speak Chinglish out loudly before others. Practice makes perfect. Perhaps someday we can speak in a more authentic accent.
I do think that say more English no matter it’s Chinglish or English is the most importent thing to us chinese student!I want improve my speaking englig,but it’s difficut for me to say english to a chinese student!I do feel that english should be sayed with foregners!
I think Chinglish study is easy to be accepted by Chinese people ! Chinglish will be popular with Chinese people , if it can be understood by the foreigners .
Funny English signs can be seen in many places in China.I think the government should pay more attention on it. Speaking chinglish helps us a lot,while written chinglish gives foreigners bad impressions of China.
I think Chinglish is the outcome of combining Chinese with English.Chinese is the foundation, and English is the tool to convey it .So some foreigners can not unserstand the meaning of it without understand the chinese.Although Chinglish is a shameful things when we confront with the English speaker,it is not a unusual thing when the chinese culture meets with English culture.We chinese should correct it gradually.
I think that Chinglish should be changed into real English or Ameri-English. In fact it is not very difficult for all of us to speak fluent and idiomatic English,as long as we often read many English articles,English news,English broadcast and so on.
Chinglish is the elementary expression for non-English speaker in learning English.Speaking Chinglish paves the way for better English,so I benefit a lot by expressing in Chinglish.But remember that Chinglish is a transition.We can speak typical English in the end.
In Zhengxin Building, I found a wired thing is there is a caution written in Japanese which is used to call your attention that cleaning work is going on. My, who will know what these Japanese mean. It is more horrible than Chinglish. HIT is surpposed to a universal university!
I am so familiar with the Chinglish because I speak Chinglish almost every day. I don’t know whether I write the Chinglish or not but I can’t be sure that I have not done that. When I look the signs written by Chinglish, I often laugh. Now I must acknowledge that I can’t avoid making the same mistakes.Chinglish may help me to study English, especially oral English. I find that sometimes I speak Chinglish without any thinking. But I can find that after speaking. As an English learner, I think I speak some Chinglish but I can avoid that if I can speak English fluently. Don’t just laugh when you look the Chinglish, you may make the same mistake too.
It’s interesting but also amazing to see these Chinglish slogans. Chinese must abandon the so-so attitude to become a developed country. Although it seems making a big fuss over a minor issue, it is really important for the foreigners to have a correct slogan. I’d rather prefer not to see these broken English words.
I think Chinglish reflects of the stronger influence of China. The culture between China and America has an effect each other. They can melt in each other. I want to see that sometime.