Friday, August 20, 2010

More Chinglish Aargh from gov.tw

From GMail ads above my email inbox. "To learn" oops. It's arguably missing a "the" before Taipei as well.

"To learn" again from GMail. Same problems as above.


Huffpost
Seen on Huffpost. "To learn" again. Note that the ad below the Taiwan ad also contains a minor error; the usual practice is to say "US goals" and avoid the awkward possessive.


salon
This one is very very minor and forgivable. Can you spot it? UPDATE: Nope, I'm wrong. No comma necessary after peoples.

These are all easily fixed. Some QC would be nice, folks -- it would make Taiwan look competent and professional.
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9 comments:

Dale Albanese said...

I have had an idea for a couple of years here that would be great for anyone with the time to get it off the ground or make it sustainable. We need a wikipedia-like (user-contributed), Extraordinaries-based (google the software if you haven't heard - it's smartphone volunteering 5 minutes on the subway to name parks on google maps or identify birds), and E-bay star-rated translation service online. You could create an account saying what your native language is, what others you speak and to what level, and then offer your version of a sentence. After the government (that never wastes money on things like flowers) spends their money with the professional translators, they could post single lines like that online and have people discuss what could be changed.

So many simple things that could make Taiwan look more professional. Another example that made me cringe were the English subtitles on Cape No. 7, such a big hit and source of pride for Taiwan. A lot of places need a native eye to add a "the" delete a plural "s" and so on.

Mike said...

"peoples"? It's the only error that I can spot. I'm clearly not the best person at proof reading.

Richard said...

"Taiwan Government Entry Point" looks to be the most awkward to me.

Don said...

Superfluous full-stops. Period.

Michael Turton said...

Don, I didn't even notice that. But true! What I saw was the missing comma.

Taiwan Echo said...

There's a much more serious problem here, Michael. See the ip address:

http://www.taiwan.gov.tw

Have we seen any country put the country name under a "gov" ?

Have we ever seen something like www.unitedstate.gov ?

The website www.ca.gov is for the California. The subdomain name, 'ca' here, is a subset of "gov".

The original ip,

www.gov.tw,

is now for Chinese users only. Clicking on the [English] tag on that website will bring users to this one,

http://www.taiwan.gov.tw

which lowers Taiwan to a subset of a gov.

That is, to Taiwanese, Ma government maintains the original ip. But to the outside world, Ma government uses this trick to display an official gesture that Taiwan is just a subset of some gov.

What's wrong to just use something like:

http://www.gov.tw/eng

or:

http://www.eng.gov.tw

???

Taiwan Echo said...

Government Information Office:

http://www.gio.gov.tw/

Now 'Taiwan' is on the same level as 'gio'.

Robert R. said...

http://www.taiwan.gov.tw

Have we seen any country put the country name under a "gov" ?


You mean like http://www.usa.gov/?
Although the difference between the Chinese & English version is a bit odd, using taiwan.gov.tw is a simple, easy to remember portal for all government sites.

I'd rather have that than www.roc.gov.tw.

Taiwan Echo said...

Robert, Thanks.