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kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
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 Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 12:54 am Post subject: Tee hee. Silly Chinese signs (BBC link) |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6052800.stm
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Beijing stamps out poor English
China has launched a fresh drive to clamp down on bad English in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Previous attempts to wipe out Chinglish - the mistranslated phrases often seen on Chinese street signs and product labels - have met with little success.
Emergency exits at Beijing airport read "No entry on peacetime" and the Ethnic Minorities Park is named "Racist Park".
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.
Chinglish has become a running joke among many foreigners in China, and several websites have been set up listing humorous examples of mistranslation.
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".
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 1:45 am Post subject: Re: Tee hee. Silly Chinese signs (BBC link) |
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| kermo wrote: |
Menus frequently list items such as "Corrugated iron beef", "Government abuse chicken" and "Chop the strange fish".
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A good place to consider vegetarianism. |
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gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 1:54 am Post subject: |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 3:16 am Post subject: Re: Tee hee. Silly Chinese signs (BBC link) |
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| Quote: |
| Menus frequently list items such as "Corrugated iron beef", "Government abuse chicken" and "Chop the strange fish". |
Three (sort of lame) jokes for the price of one:
Fortunately, no frog, eh, Kermo?
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In Turkey, one restaurant I frequented (a good place, truly) described doner kebab as "revolting spit" on the menu.
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"Government abuse chicken"? Is that the Chinese equivalent of what we used to call "forced march chicken" in the Sov? |
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flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:03 am Post subject: Re: Tee hee. Silly Chinese signs (BBC link) |
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| kermo wrote: |
"Government abuse chicken".
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We're sure this isn't a euphemism, right? The Party can't have grip on that as well... |
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Smee
Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Location: Jeollanam-do
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:45 am Post subject: |
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| gang ah jee wrote: |
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You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to gang ah jee again. |
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SeoulShakin
Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:31 am Post subject: |
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A friend of mine snapped a pic of a sign at the great wall that said "Welcome to see you again."
Thought it was quite funny at the time. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 4:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Bite the wax tadpole! |
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JongnoGuru
Joined: 25 May 2004
Location: peeing on your doorstep
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
| Bite the wax tadpole! |
I was thinking about that.
Claim: Coca-Cola's initial transliteration of their name into Chinese produced a rendering whose meaning was "bite the wax tadpole."
Status: Not quite.
Origins: When Coca-Cola first entered the Chinese market in 1928, they had no official representation of their name in Mandarin. They needed to find four Chinese characters whose pronunciations approximated the sounds "ko-ka-ko-la" without producing a nonsensical or adverse meaning when strung together as a written phrase. (Written Chinese employs about 40,000 different characters, of which about 200 are pronounced with sounds that could be used in forming the name "ko-ka-ko-la.") While Coca-Cola was searching for a satisfactory combination of symbols to represent their name, Chinese shopkeepers created signs that combined characters whose pronunciations formed the string "ko-ka-ko-la," but they did so with no regard for the meanings of the written phrases they formed in doing so. The character for wax, pronounced "la," was used in many of these signs, resulting in strings that sounded like "ko-ka-ko-la" when pronounced but conveyed nonsensical meanings such as "female horse fastened with wax," "wax-flattened mare," or "bite the wax tadpole" when read.
Coca-Cola had to avoid using many of the 200 symbols available for forming "ko-ka-ko-la" because of their meanings, including all of the characters pronounced "la." They compromised by opting for the character l�, meaning "joy," and approximately pronounced as "ler." The transliteration of the name 'Coca-Cola' they finally settled on used the following characters:
This representation literally translated as "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice," but it acceptably represented the concept of "something palatable from which one receives pleasure." It was the real thing, with no wax tadpoles or female horses, and Coca-Cola registered it as its Chinese trademark in 1928. (sounds kinky)
Both this advertising tale and the apocryphal story about the Chevy Nova's sales failure in Spanish-speaking countries are often cited as examples of the hubris of American corporations who fail to take cultural differences (specifically language use) into account when marketing their products in foreign countries. Both examples are untrue, and in this case the claim is especially egregious, as few companies can match Coca-Cola's amazing history of successfully adapting their product and marketing techniques to meet the demands of a wide variety of global markets.
source: snopes.com |
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sojukettle
Joined: 23 Aug 2005
Location: Not there, HERE!
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| Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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I saw one in Singapore recently ( not really china - but the sign was in chinese characters..) the english version stated:
" No Authorised Parking Permitted" |
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chilgok007
Joined: 28 May 2006
Location: Chilgok
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| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 3:57 am Post subject: |
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If you think that's funny...
http://www.engrish.com/
The name says it all. |
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chilgok007
Joined: 28 May 2006
Location: Chilgok
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| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:17 am Post subject: |
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Here's a little sampling...
Only in China...
The odd part about the above one is that English translation is pretty much what the sign means... |
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chilgok007
Joined: 28 May 2006
Location: Chilgok
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| Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 4:40 am Post subject: |
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| JongnoGuru wrote: |
| Hater Depot wrote: |
| Bite the wax tadpole! |
I was thinking about that.
Claim: Coca-Cola's initial transliteration of their name into Chinese produced a rendering whose meaning was "bite the wax tadpole."
Status: Not quite.
Origins: When Coca-Cola first entered the Chinese market in 1928, they had no official representation of their name in Mandarin. They needed to find four Chinese characters whose pronunciations approximated the sounds "ko-ka-ko-la" without producing a nonsensical or adverse meaning when strung together as a written phrase. (Written Chinese employs about 40,000 different characters, of which about 200 are pronounced with sounds that could be used in forming the name "ko-ka-ko-la.") While Coca-Cola was searching for a satisfactory combination of symbols to represent their name, Chinese shopkeepers created signs that combined characters whose pronunciations formed the string "ko-ka-ko-la," but they did so with no regard for the meanings of the written phrases they formed in doing so. The character for wax, pronounced "la," was used in many of these signs, resulting in strings that sounded like "ko-ka-ko-la" when pronounced but conveyed nonsensical meanings such as "female horse fastened with wax," "wax-flattened mare," or "bite the wax tadpole" when read.
Coca-Cola had to avoid using many of the 200 symbols available for forming "ko-ka-ko-la" because of their meanings, including all of the characters pronounced "la." They compromised by opting for the character l�, meaning "joy," and approximately pronounced as "ler." The transliteration of the name 'Coca-Cola' they finally settled on used the following characters:
This representation literally translated as "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice," but it acceptably represented the concept of "something palatable from which one receives pleasure." It was the real thing, with no wax tadpoles or female horses, and Coca-Cola registered it as its Chinese trademark in 1928. (sounds kinky)
Both this advertising tale and the apocryphal story about the Chevy Nova's sales failure in Spanish-speaking countries are often cited as examples of the hubris of American corporations who fail to take cultural differences (specifically language use) into account when marketing their products in foreign countries. Both examples are untrue, and in this case the claim is especially egregious, as few companies can match Coca-Cola's amazing history of successfully adapting their product and marketing techniques to meet the demands of a wide variety of global markets.
source: snopes.com |
Based on my knowledge, this is also not 100% accurate. First, in Chinese, the transliteration is: "Ke Kou Ke Le (可口可乐)." "ke kou(可口)" literally means "tasty" or "delicious," while "ke le (可乐) is really just a transliteration of the English word for "cola." It is used in many other product names as well as when asking for a soft drink in general (example: Pepsi is translated as "Bai Shi Ke Le 百事可乐" lit: "100 things cola"). As far as the word "Ke le" is concerned, the literal meaning is regarded as gibberish. The "可 zi" means "to can" ( it can sometimes be used to emphasis an adjective) and the "乐 zi" does mean happiness. But, most Chinese I've asked about this consider the word to be just as it is: as the Chinese word for "cola." Put together, the meaning for Coca Cola would literally be: "Tasty Cola."
Edit: The Chinese do adopt English or foreign loanwords (albiet rarely...they prefer their own neologisms). Another example of this phenomenon is the Chinese word for "Calorie": 卡路里 (Ka Lu Li). As with the word "Cola", the characters are used for nothing more than their sounds and not for their meanings. Taken literally, "卡路里" would mean "stop road mile." |
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