Last Saturday morning, instead of waking up and pulling on my exercise clothes as per usual, I was sitting uncomfortably in my "serious suit".
Perched behind a large table set high up on a stage, I looked down at an audience of nearly 300 eager listeners. To my right, sat a long row of professors and foreign language experts.
When the vice-dean of a prestigious university's School of Chinese as a Second Language called my name from the roster of speakers, I stood up and mustered a nervous bow. When I sat down again, I cast nervous glances at a thick pack of PowerPoint slides stowed away in the cubby beneath the table. Silently, I rehearsed the words of my presentation, hoping I wouldn't forget them later.
I was participating in a conference organized by the university. The audience members were Chinese language teachers who had flown in from the US and Canada to hear experts speak about teaching methods. I was there to present on a new language learning book series that my publisher had launched.
After lavish opening remarks and rounds of enthusiastic applause, it was almost time to take the stage. Luckily, I wasn't the first speaker. I remained seated, fidgeting, as the speaker before me went up.
As soon as he put up his first slide, my jitters dissipated. A new sentiment - a familiar, mild malaise - came on instead. There, splashed on the big screen, was an announcement of exciting new tools: "Unplug Multimedia Device", brought to you by the people who clearly didn't consult a native English speaker when shortening the word "dictionary" to create their company name.
Behind me, a few North American teachers exchanged confused whispers about what "unplug" means. Others muffled their chuckles at the company's unfortunate name. ("Unplug," judging by the Chinese text on the slide, should've been "cordless").
I was slightly mortified. Why hadn't this company asked someone to proofread their materials? They're going up against an audience of bilingual language teachers, for Pete's sake!
As the presentation went on, a few more blunders caught my eye. There was a "digital fescue", which sounded like something an angry robot would do to you (and not at all like a digital pointer that a teacher could use on an interactive board when instructing). There were "sentence patents", which had me scratching my head, until I realized these intellectual-property-rights-respecting sentences were actually supposed to be "sentence patterns".
Scattered throughout the presentation were nonsensical, but grammatically correct, English phrases. "Fescue", by the way, is "a small pointer (as a stick) used to point out letters to children learning to read", according to Merriam-Webster. The presenter had done part of the work - he found the precise English words to relay his Chinese meaning - but he hadn't gone the whole way. The word "fescue" probably hasn't been in popular usage for the last 400 years.
I expect this kind of Chinglish to appear on shoddy restaurant menus, awkward street signs and even convoluted English translations of Chinese census slogans. But at a conference about language? It was too ironic.
Everywhere in Beijing, we see these half-English half-Chinese translations. I spoke to some professional translators, to ask why the heck they weren't doing their job around town. Apparently, the good translators are upset too. Their main gripe is how much bad translation work is out there.
One friend told me, "I can't tell you how many times a client has come to me with some translation that they tried to do themselves, only to realize it still wasn't English. Then I have to retranslate the translation."
Another translator complained: "There's always silly Chinglish around town. Things that are getting engraved in brass plates - just drag any foreigner in front of the sign and ask them if it makes sense, please!"
Making sense isn't a science, a mechanical process of putting Chinese words into a translation machine and getting English back. Real translation requires good writing skills and cultural awareness, for the person charged with transforming information from one language into another has to convey the right meanings. For that, you really need a native speaker, or at least a "sanity check" by someone who can tell you what sounds plain weird.
I know we'll get there slowly. As people realize that the image, branding and packaging of a product (or service, or social service) is as important as the substance behind it, they will start to perfect their translations. But sometimes, when I come across words that make me ask "Say what?" I wish that day were here now. (Words by Qi Zhai, picture by Zhang Chengliang)
(China Daily)
