I always do.
I'd probably use flush instead of wash ...
This is another good example of the right-in-your-face-character of Chinglish. Western toilet signs usually carefully circumvent issues related to certain body functions (althought that's what they are mainly for), resulting in requests such as "Please flush after use" or even just "Please flush afterwards" not mentioning those sometimes heavenly relieving actions after all ...
Taken in 西安 Xi'an, thanks to Hugh.
posted by olr — 纪韶融 @ 3/27/2007
18 Comments
18Comments:
Check this out:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/4903b8fa010007ki
Someone's blog about the English signs on a train.
Excellent, thanks!
The title is
进京火车上令人惊愕的英语错误
by blogger 羽佳, March 2nd 2007
Want to read it?
great brief man with humous.
勇气可嘉的家伙！
i had add ur blog adrress on mine.
a funny place.
Actually,I cannot translate some of the signs correctly as well~~~
:-)
I think "wash" made more sense to the cleaner. Whereas, In spite of "after relief" is not a common way, it sounds much literate.
老纪~！你当是个哈宝。
Ace: good point.
I actually like "after relief" very much, since this is what a toilet is all about, basically ...
我是一个中国人，看到你的博客确实感觉很奇怪，因为我从来都没有去注意过那些标语的英文翻译，我觉得在中国人眼里，英语翻译根本无足轻重，对我们的生活没有丝毫影响。随着近年来外国人大量的出现在中国的土地上，我们国家的政府才逐渐开始注意这种情况，尤其是奥运会即将举办，改造标识牌已经迫在眉睫。所以，相信在不久的将来我们国家一定会统一那些标识牌的，在此谢谢你们对我们国家的关注！交个朋友吧？xuchao-999-@163.com可以给我写信
好 :)。
Hi,
This may sound odd. I want to recommend a blog to you. Originally I planned to send you an email and yet I can't find one in this blog, so I do it here. I hope you don't mind leaving msg that are not related to this post.
http://daisann.com/2007/01/26/lik-go.aspx
The blogger "put up examples of 'Cool Chinese-English Signs In Hong Kong' as a antidote to those other 'Bad Chinese Translation' websites"
Plz delete this msg if you dont think it is appropriate here.
Bratrice, not odd at all, thanks for the recommendation! I'll try to get in touch with him.
olr.
提个小小的建议：把Blog图片换一换如何呢？
毕竟这里的客人不是deformed man，而您这里也不是toilet。
开个玩笑，不过的确是个建议。
there's a suggestion, can you change your blog's logo? as no one believes that the readers are deformed men who want to wash hands in a toilet here.
by johnhollon, john_holen at 163 dot com
Hi John,
thanks for your extensive comments. Regarding your suggestion, I can only say that I don't think that any of my readers believe this blog is about deformed men or toilets but about Chinglish only.
Best,
olr.
I think it just somehow reflects the "state of affairs" in wherever that the sign is posted.
To me, both the Chinese and English are a bit ambiguous. The Chinese seems to suggest that one should flush after use. And the English seems to suggest one should wash his hands after use, like "Employees must wash hands after use." If one needs to be reminded to flush after use, that's really bad....
Laichungleung,
I think your analysis is totally correct, the translations focuses on the hands, the Chinese original on the bowl.
In my experience signs reminding customers to flush after use in Chinese are very common in the PRC. But so are many English ones around the world, don't you think?
I thought "chongxi" means "develop" as in film. Photo shops in Taiwan all say this.
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