Love for Chinglish

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:14 am

I tend to believe that one of the best ways for East Asians to improve their English would be for governments to impose fines for public misuse, because English is everywhere and yet is often very unreliable input, or utter nonsense.

Here's a very opposite take on things.........

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009- ... 187502.htm

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 4:05 am

It sure is lively all right. But sometimes Chinglish can be a little bit over the top. Cultural treasure or not, someone needs to tell the restaurant owner that gan is better translated as "dry," not the other, sexual meaning.

The rabbit does what to the pot?

Chinese menu

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 10:17 am

The most neutral thought that I have after reading the Xinhua story is that Radtke is pretty liberal for a German. He talks about academic value, but that just sounds like so much hand-waving (probably he's just trying to put a more novel and perhaps more attractive spin on the books he's released).

A similar article was posted mid-2008 on the Job Discussion forum. My response there was:

The rhetorical questions at the start of that article made me rather write off and consequently just skim through the rest of it. Dodgy translations aren't evidence of a new evolving standard of English, they are just indicative of how translation work is often strangely given or delegated to those ill-equipped to do it, presumably in an effort to save money or even out of mistrust of Anglophones (and even if there were uniformity in mistranslations, that would probably only indicate misuse of the same or similar dictionaries or translation tools). English visitors to China would be at least bemused by what they'd almost certainly perceive as questionable "English", whilst for many Chinese, such "English" would remain as incomprehensible as more kosher English.

( http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=64396 )

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Wed May 13, 2009 10:42 pm

This has now been mentioned by Victor Mair over at Language Log:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1432

Apparently there's an interview with Mair in the recent book from Radtke mentioned in the Xinhua article.