Please don’t stamp the grass
The Chinese government has launched a campaign, according to this article, to clean up mistranslations and bad English, in preparation for the world descending on Beijing for the Olympic Games in 2008.
Warning signs such as “Nice to live. Pay attention to safety” and menus offering “Swallowing the clouds” have made the government realise that if things aren’t changed, the city will “lose face”, according to Liu Yang of the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages program, quoted in the article.
As well as correcting signs and giving Chinese dishes in restaurants standardized names, citizens are being offered free English classes to boost the number of foreign language speakers and police officers and taxi drivers are being taught useful English phrases.
Will everything be completed to the government’s satisfaction in time for the Games in 2008? If you’re teaching in China at the moment, let us know how things are progressing by posting a comment below…
February 1st, 2007 at 3:52 pm
China’s been ready for the Olympics for ages, so I can’t see it being anything other than the best organised Olympics ever. So it doesn’t surprise me that they’re doing this. Although I think it would keep a bit of “character” if they didn’t correct all the mistakes!