Thursday, February 09, 2006

Chinglish - some bloomers

Chinese and English are worlds apart (a fact that I'm perfectly aware of: My Mandarin still progresses at the pace of a rheumatic cow..). Some funny side-effects of this are:
  • Some restaurant's menu cards become pretty scary. Or would you like to eat for example:
    • "explodes the stomach" or "explodes the sausage" (we spontaneously decided not to risk it.. ;)
    • "double boiled deer's tail in water duck soup"
  • All kinds of movies with English subtitles end up being somewhat funny (or flat-out hilarious!)
    • A great example is Starwars "Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" (or as the subtitle calls it: "The backstroke of the west". Go visit Winterson to have a glimpse at some more great screenshots..
  • Some ads change sense slightly and become somewhat sarcastic
    • The ad of the posh Beijing Garden hotel on the flipside of "City Weekend" (Great Entertainment guide in English, with quite an important readership) tries to push it's business among other with its [Club house] Swimming poor, gym, sauna,..
  • Some of the translations spit out by the online translator Xie Lei (a love of a colleague (die "gute Seele" von Exoweb)) and I use to (potentially) understand each other:
    • "Beijing of evening of today snowing. Ride the bike to fall down carefully."
  • Some signs have a hard time getting their intended message across:
    • "The Safety is dependable from save to bring on oneself to charge reasonable" (Next to the lockers at the train station in Harbin). Hüüü?!
    • "Question Authority" (in a bank.. guess what they want to say is: address your questions to a clerk, or something alike..)
    • "In order to keep fit, no spitting please". I wished Chinese would actually abide by the rule established by this sign... ;)
Somewhat selfishly, I do hope that the average Chinese's English level is going to stay on the level of my Chinese for a little longer. Otherwise life would be way less funny..

I "very like" Chinglish..! :)

13 Comments:

At 7:56 AM, Rob said...

Hey Dom!

I am currently fascinated by another hybrid language - the 'Denglish' spoken by Bee on the phone. Huera comisch!

Example:
"Ich habe etwas in @.net geposted"

So tell me, after all this time selling the benefits to others, how is it the experience of being on an @ internship? As well as being interested as a friend, i do also have selfish motives :o) I'm starting to think it will be my next step after June 30th...

Anyway take care and please keep the posts comin! If you wanna keep up with events here in der Schweiz, check out the MC blogs:

rob.nomadlife, chitgo.nomadlife, binebee.nomadlife

Hasta luego, amigo!

 
At 9:48 AM, Carissa )i( said...

Just saw the comment you left on my blog concerning the pic I posted of you with the beautiful red wig...LOL (Beijing crew: Just let me know if you need anymore DomL-related reputation-shattering images, ok? :-))
Dom, I hope your reputation over there in B-city ain't takin' too much harm from that...? Nah, impossible. I'm sure you've established that reputation well before me posting the photo. Besides, that one was so harmless compared to photos haning on our office door (hehe)

 
At 11:41 AM, Sheila Z. said...

Carissa, ALL of us here in Beijing wants to see more DomL-related reputation-shattering images. Feel free to publicize them in any way, shape, or manner. :)

 
At 11:56 AM, Pierre said...

I second what Sheila has said. Dom - mate... you better have some excuses ready! :D (and no - running away to Shanghai this weekend isn't going to save you!)

 
At 12:33 PM, DomL said...

Carissa.. pleeeeeease!!! (I'll even do what CK did in the concerning photo...)

 
At 12:51 PM, Carissa )i( said...

Hahahahaha, I feel so powerful right now ! :-D "Carissa almighty!" LOL

Dom, luckily for you, I don't possess that infamous picture of CK "placing a smooch on your derrière". The other minor infamous pictures are on the Geneva AIESEC office computers...and the ones that I have left on my laptop, well, they're not so spectacular :)

However, Sheila & Pierre AND Dom : I am open to bribery :-D

 
At 3:40 PM, Pierre said...

I've been doing this way too much lately...

Carissa, name your price! :D

 
At 4:03 PM, DomL said...

:-O
Pierre, I'm soo disappointed....


(Carissa, I'll pay whatever Pierre offers plus one kiss on a spot to be specified :)

 
At 11:53 PM, CK said...

helllloooooooooo... this is the not-yet-blogging but apparently-already-quite-famous CK writing to you directly from Berne city, Switzerland. I am opening applications for that famous pic you are talking about, since I certainly have it right here on my laptop... hehehe
Dom... sorry... nevertheless keep posting, I enjoy reading...
Hugs, CK

 
At 1:13 AM, Carissa )i( said...

Great move CK, or "gefickt eingeschädelt" LOL

Am glad somehow that CK's taking over now, as I should be a serious student and study for my exams instead of hunting for photos with weird guys in even weirder red wigs in them...But I shall support CK in every other way possible after exam peridod if necessary ;-) The more the merrier! A pity though I wasn't able to negotiate with Pierre and Dom :-D

 
At 6:17 PM, sakit said...

Hi Dom - I'm Devrim's friend who used to live in Hong Kong. I couldn't stop laughing reading this blog. Of course, I've encountered interesting captions and signs in China. Great read - thanx!

And to share some interesting signs in my China travels:
http://archive.aiesec.ws/sakitakasu.aiesec.ws/stories/storyReader$259.html

 
At 10:26 PM, China Conversations said...

Hi, Dom, did not get a chance to thank you for your warm welcome to the blog world a few days ago! ;) I am enjoying reading your blog, keep it up! The photo of the nephew is cool. Bye for now!

 
At 7:31 AM, alissa said...

Hi there, don't know you but found your blog through Devrim's... have you seen http://www.engrish.com/? It's hilarious stuff like what you are describing. For some reason this is the funniest in Asia...

 

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