Clipmarks | Chinglish Clips

English language in the future

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:41:21 GMT

clipped by: dakotayii
clipper's remarks: In China, this sort of free-form adoption of English is helped along by a shortage of native English-speaking teachers, who are hard to keep happy in rural areas for long stretches of time. An estimated 300 million Chinese — roughly equivalent to the total US population — read and write English but don't get enough quality spoken practice. The likely consequence of all this? In the future, more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese.

Clip Source: www.wired.com

The targeted offenses: if you are stolen, call the police at once. please omnivorously put the waste in garbage can. deformed man lavatory. For the past 18 months, teams of language police have been scouring Beijing on a mission to wipe out all such traces of bad English signage before the Olympics come to town in August. They're the type of goofy transgressions that we in the English homelands love to poke fun at, devoting entire Web sites to so-called Chinglish. (By the way, that last phrase means "handicapped bathroom.")

But what if these sentences aren't really bad English? What if they are evidence that the English language is happily leading an alternative lifestyle without us?

By 2020, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language. Already, most conversations in English are between nonnative speakers who use it as a lingua franca

Tags: society

Don't disturb the grass

Fri, 30 May 2008 01:42:22 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3

Clip Source: language.chinadaily.com.cn

参赛感言： The use of 'disturb' is more common with animals or people, less so with plants. So it's a bit of Chinglish. And I suggest “ Please protect the grass.”or“Keep Off the Grass”.

Tags: china

Signs of panic over 'Chinglish' in Beijingghs

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:25:58 GMT

clipped by: JediKnut
clipper's remarks: Just an interesting article - read the original (the entire article) for a few laughs!

But what seems like a few laughs, seems to be a serious problem in China, with the Olympics coming up!

Read on!

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Signs of panic over 'Chinglish' in Beijing

For years, badly translated signs have had the Englishman abroad in stitches. But for tourism officials in Beijing, a city preparing for the arrival of millions of visitors for the Olympic Games in August, the problem is far from funny.

The Beijing Municipal Tourism Bureau has hired English linguists to eradicate "Chinglish" from signs and shop fronts.

It has also instructed the city's 4,000 unrated hotels to translate their names, service hours, room rates, menus and notices into accurate English.

Restaurateurs have been given a list of the proper English names for the most commonly mistranslated items, including "virgin chicken" for a young chicken dish, "steamed crap" instead of crab, and "burnt lion's head" describing Chinese pork meatballs.

"These translations either scare or embarrass foreign customers and may cause misunderstanding on China's diet habits," the state news agency said.

Tags: chinglish, chinese, english, translations, signs

Xinjiang Cuisine

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 11:48:06 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: This website is missing some important dishes, is Sinocentric, and follows the hilarious Chinglish practice of literally translating the names of dishes directly from Chinese into English.

Typical Chinese overstatement and exaggeration. Wish it had some Uygur names and history.

Clip Source: www.chinavista.com

Xinjiang-Style Cuisine

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is inhabited by many ethnic groups, and Xinjiang-style food is characterized by roast mutton, kebabs, roast fish and rice to be eaten with the hand.

Xinjiang kebabs are a snack which is popular nationwide in China, Kebabs can be found in the streets and bazaars throughout Xinjiang. Chunks of mutton are strung on a skewer and roasted over charcoal. The kebabs are turned continually, and when they are almost done, salt, pepper and other seasonings are sprinkled on them. Kebabs are crispy outside and tender inside, slightly salty and hot. They are not greasy and have no unpleasant smell.

Cheap Toy Round-Up 2007

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:07:15 GMT

clipped by: CrazyRedHead
clipper's remarks: Cheap-ass toys, complete with free lead paint and instructions in Chinglish

Clip Source: www.avclub.com

Jack Sparrow In Escape Coffin

$2.48

Delicious Can ($.33)

In length and girth, the fake snake is, umm, penis-sized and shaped.

Chef Mario's Dining Disasters

So how exactly does a tiny dish filled with rubbery fake spaghetti and little plastic rats and roaches constitute a "toy?"

Clip Source: www.avclub.com

Beetle Barn Lifecycle Kit

Send coupon to get your LIVE LARVAE!

Flying Human Torch

looking remarkably like what would come out of the wrong end of a Great Dane who sucked down a bunch of molten orange plastic

Clip Source: www.avclub.com

Natural World Elephant

elephants? According to this toy, they scream like a woman in agony. Was there a messy, fatal factory accident just as these were being made, or what?

Electronic Mobile Phone ($1)

Some of the buttons make irritating noises

Clip Source: www.avclub.com

Magic Wishes Talking Bubble Wand

You're supposed to blow a bubble, make a wish

catch the bubble on the mermaid's magic '70s disco mandala headband

she'll answer your question with a canned phrase like "No way!" "Maybe!"

Queen Of The Prom

Poker Night

Rubber Dolphin ($.33)

Tags: children, toys, entertainment, idiots

Chinglish - signs lost in translation

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:13:16 GMT

clipped by: CrazyRedHead

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

With so many English-speaking tourists and businessmen now travelling to China, the Chinese are having to translate their signs to help visitors. Sometimes, though, the message gets lost, and the results can be amusing, and often utterly baffling. Now a new book has collected pictures of some of the best examples and here we present a selection...

Tags: english, china, language, funny, humor

Chinglish! examples of signs lost in translation

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 08:20:33 GMT

clipped by: michellezm

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Tags: china, signs, humour

Skype & Music

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:39:16 GMT

clipped by: jvdb321

Clip Source: www.tellmeskype.com

Music in 2027?

My breakfast club asked about the future of music; my take.

In twenty years...

We'll be listening through...

Wireless ear buds for the poor.
Literal ear buds for the middle class (in the ubiquitous Lasik era).
Bass-range full-body mods for immersive world players.

Everything touchable/viewable has the option of a sonic identity as printable electronics become free/cheap. This means all goods have theme songs, animation, and spoken (Chinglish?) instructions built in; and we're talking about products, not even their packaging. Early cacophony in retail (all those products talking, singing, emoting) leads to more polite sound triggers and real-time, inter-product/brand negotiation for which gets to play what when and for whom.

Comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Tags: skype, music

Signs in 'Chinglish'. Chinese/english

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 10:08:11 GMT

clipped by: righthand

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Signs in 'Chinglish'

YOUR PICTURE GALLERY IS NOW LOADING...

China has launched a drive to clamp down on bad English and mistranslated phrases in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics

James

Of course, what they meant was 'in order to keep the Great Wall in good condition, please don't spit on it

Jonathan Wilson was struck by this stark warning of the consequences of climbing over the wall

Halima Brewer found this cream promising to "subdue clean pieces... of smallpox glossily."

An unusual method of law enforcement

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A young boy dressed as a Hindu God

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Dozens of people were killed in Greece

Rescuers evacuated villages

A reveller rests during the annual tomato fight

Worshippers and guests attend a service at Germany's largest synagogue, which has reopened in Berlin

Tags: images, china

Signs in 'Chinglish'

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:17:52 GMT

clipped by: tidbit2
clipper's remarks: more on slideshow

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Adrian Clark sent this picture of advice to visitors to the Great Wall: "Of course, what they meant was 'in order to keep the Great Wall in good condition, please don't spit on it.''"

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Back

Your pictures: Signs in 'Chinglish'

Tags: china, english

Oh man that Hertz

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 23:22:13 GMT

clipped by: drmattbarney
clipper's remarks: Funny chinese sign.....oh man that Hertz

Clip Source: www.engrish.com

Tags: funny, china, comedy, humor, sign, chinglish, engrish

Are they nuts?

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:59:21 GMT

clipped by: drmattbarney
clipper's remarks: Wow - what a sign. Are they nuts?

Clip Source: www.engrish.com

Tags: funny, china, humor, comedy, engrish, chinglish, asia

Chilinglish Signs

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:58:28 GMT

clipped by: dorine
clipper's remarks: The OB dept sign is the best!

Clip Source: pocopico.com

One of the best things about living in China is that you are exposed everyday to a bombardment of assaults on the English language known by expats as "Chinglish." No drunken nonsense hatched in your skull could possibly match the grammatic shenanigans concocted by Chinese students of English.

Clip Source: pocopico.com

Tags: china, signs, english, funny

Top Chinglish Words and Phrases of 2006

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 06:02:47 GMT

clipped by: wurdzgurl

Clip Source: www.languagemonitor.com

San Diego, Calif. November 22, 2006. 'No Noising' and 'Airline Pulp' have been named the Top Chinglish Words of 2006 in The Global Language Monitor's annual survey of the Chinese-English hybrid words known more commonly as Chinglish. Though often viewed with amusement by the rest of the English-speaking world, The Chinglish phenomenon is one of the prime drivers of Globalization of the English Language.

With the English Language marching steadily toward the 1,000,000 word mark, there are now some 1.3 billion speakers with English as their native, second, business or technical tongue. In 1960, the number of English Speakers hovered around 250,000,000 mainly located in the UK and its Commonwealth of former colonies, and the US.

Some scholars maintain that you cannot actually count the number of words in the language because it is impossible to say exactly what a word is, talking rather of memes and other linguistic constructs, are afraid that Global English is just another form of cultural Imperialism. GLM take the classic view of the language as understood in Elisabethan England, where a word was 'a thing spoken' or an 'idea spoken'.

The Top Chinglish Words and Phrases of 2006 follow:

1. "No Noising". Translated as "quiet please!"

2. "Airline pulp." Food served aboard an airliner.

3. "Jumping umbrella". A hang-glider.

4. "Question Authority". Information Booth.

5. "Burnt meat biscuit." No it's not something to enjoy from the North of England but what is claimed to be bread dipped in a savory meat sauce.

Bonus: GLM's all-time favorite from previous surveys: "The Slippery are very crafty". Translation: Slippery when wet!

Tags: chinese, english, words, linguistics

no homeless rubbish here

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 01:19:38 GMT

clipped by: mona

Clip Source: www.cameraontheroad.com

Tags: chinglish, signs