Substitution of pinyin with English in road sign

[Ian_Lee]

Gato:

I doubt about your taxi experience in Hong Kong.

There are many more foreigners in Hong Kong than in either Beijing or Shanghai. And there are even more Mandarin-only speakers than foreigners in Hong Kong. Everyday the cab driver will at least get one or more customers that belong to the above group.

Undeniably there are some taxi drivers, especially the old folks (Unlike Mainland cities a lot of cab drivers in HK are senior citizens), who don't understand either English or Mandarin. But the taxi industry has already invented a way to deal with it.

Every single taxi in HK is equipped with CB Radio. Whenever a foreigner or Mandarin-speaker boards the taxi and speaks out a destination that the driver doesn't thoroughly understand, the cab driver will right away ask the girl (who can speak English and Mandarin) in the base station where the customer wants to go (sometimes he even hands over the mic to the customer to speak directly with the base station). Then the problem is easily resolved.

In your case, actually you can just write down your destination in Chinese characters (preferably traditional script) to the cab driver and he should know the whereabout.

I don't object pinyin of the street names in HK. But the problem is that there are even more tones in Cantonese and there are so many similar street names in HK. If somehow the customer tries to pinyin out the destination but unfortunately in the wrong tone (most of the case), he may be driven to somewhere he doesn't want to go.

And if you have watched the last series of "Amazing Race" that just finished airing in last April, it showed the competitors shuttling around in HK by jumping into taxis and asking the cab driver to take them to "Happy Valley", "Star Ferry Pier", "Macau Ferry Pier",.....etc in English. None got problem except one pair was taken to the Star Ferry Pier on the HK Island side instead of the Kowloon side.

Actually many HK places got its own romanization such as "Tsimshatsui", "Mongkok", "Shamshuipo", "Kowloon Tong",...etc.

[flameproof]

Ian_Lee

Many Chinese have the in Asia very common nonasiandeafness, that is, if their language is spoken to them they can only understand it if it's spoke by somebody with an asian face. So even if it's perfectly spoken by a "white", they can not understand it.

That brain condition is also common in Japan, in China also, but to a far lesser extend.

many HK places got its own romanization such as "Tsimshatsui", "Mongkok", "Shamshuipo", "Kowloon Tong",...etc.

That quality varies a lot. "Tsimshatsui" and "Shamshuipo" are very accurate examples. But "Mongkok" and "Kowloon Tong" are actually not close enough to be really understood by a zero English speaker.

So what Gato experienced is plausible.

[gato]

I was trying to go to Mandarin Oriental on Connaught Road. One correction though: actually I didn't know the name of either the hotel or the road in Chinese. I was surprised that the driver didn't know the English name of the hotel. I'm still not sure what "Mandarin Oriental" is in Chinese.

[Ian_Lee]

文華東方酒店 -- Hotel management group that specializes in managing 5-6 star hotels around the world. I also wonder how come that cab driver didn't know its English name.

[imron]

Maybe the cab drivers in HK are like the ones in BJ. If they don't want to take a short fare, they just pretend they don't know the destination

[mr.stinky]

english on road signs? here in kunming, they often misspell the pinyin. i think it's too

much of a leap to expect the correct english. and what are the odds that the

ungeneering folks in the various districts will coordinate their efforts? they'll grab the

first guy with rudimentary english, and a pocket dictionary to translate. then you'll

get a mix of street, road, avenue, boulevard, lane, way, etc., most likely misspelled.

plus you'll have some of them translating the street names as well, and others not, so

names could change depending on district. 五一路 could be 51st street, or may first

way, or fiveoneroad, etc.

for my part, i prefer characters as they're so much easier to read from a distance through

a dirty bus window. the pinyin can be impossible, especially with a long street name

with no spacing between the syllables.

[heifeng]

I doubt about your taxi experience in Hong Kong.

What's there to doubt...it apparently happened...

for my part, i prefer characters as they're so much easier to read from a distance through a dirty bus window.

haha! I also vote for characters for this precise reason. Having the unfortunate experience of riding in a car with someone who CANNOT read Chinese characters recently (sigh very frightening experience indeed) let me tell you, the characters are much larger and clearer! From long distances the romanized crap whether it be English or Pinyin is very hard to see clearly, if you are relying on it you are not going to make your exit in time period.

Everything seems to be for the Olympics, but long term I think they should just keep pinyin. Once again, this must be part of the "Chinese is too hard for those silly foreigners to learn" campaign. Even so, I just vote for mass zeroxing of direction and tourist handouts at the airport to issue to us big nosed foreigners to explain the basics of getting around in China and avoid getting ripped off by 'English students". Then, to make it 'huan bao' they can just make the paper biodegradable and the ink nontoxic so if any laowai forget about the bring your own tp to the w.c. (now renamed toilet) concept they have a backup plan...

[flameproof]

Whatever happens, if they add English, I hope they will not remove the Pinyin.

And if they add English, I seriously wonder how silly it will get. There will be some brilliant Chinese people who know perfect English and will do an excellent job. But there also too many that learned English from probably from the Teletubbies or Mr.Bean.

So, if they do add English to all signs, I am ready for a good laugh!

PS: Why that change from W.C. to Toilet? Is because the letter for "Water" is misleading because many don't flush?

[heifeng]

they have an article here, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-06-06/022511964899s.shtml

but I saw it on yahoo also a few days ago too.

I think they should just get to work on the really Chinglish signs...to pinyin or not to pinyin road names isn't a huge deal...at least with pinyin they have less of a chance to screw up the translation....they just need to keep everything simple...

[flameproof]

I think they should just get to work on the really Chinglish signs...

No no no!!! PLEASE, don't touch the Chinglish!

[heifeng]

haha...nice.

My personal favorite is the 不孕不育hospitals being called sterility hospitals....ok, we KNOW what they mean (maybe something along the lines of fertility hospitals to help one with their fertility,or lack there of, plus some other actual sterilization services) but I like the idea of a doctor holding something long, sharp and pointy saying welcome to our sterility hospital....hahahahahhaha twilight zone type stuff:mrgreen:

[mr.stinky]

think the same folks who are resplonslible for these will get the contract?

[Lu]

Why English on street signs, this is China, not Australia or the US. If this would happen in the Netherlands it would piss me off for being linguistic imperialism.

Apart from that, some other good points were made. Chinese won't know the English names of their streets, so it won't help in communicating with them. Also, misspellings and mistranslations would be rampant (although not as bad as in Taiwan, were they can't even agree on a romanization system), which won't help anyone in finding their way either. I say just keep the characters, and add pinyin for the convenience of the foreigners.

Incidentally, if the gov't isn't going to mass-produce a map with street names and locations of major tourist attractions, what stops other people from doing that and making a load of money on it?

[roddy]

I'm not sure there's much money to be made from a bilingual map, especially if you bear in mind that if there is, it'll be instantly pirated and the profits will end up being split between anyone with a color photocopier. However, when you consider all the hot air expelled about making Beijing a better place to visit, taxi drivers learning English, etc, the government / tourist administration / whoever would be well advised to fund A4, laminated, bilingual maps featuring the major tourist attractions, hotels and landmarks (perhaps with a more detailed list on the back) and perhaps even the phone number for a bilingual 'Hello Taxi!' helpline. Issue one to each taxi driver. Done.

[heifeng]

Why English on street signs, this is China, not Australia or the US.

haha. China is voluntarily sellin out that's why.

By the way, they do hand out some taxi-related brochures at the airport when you wait in line for a cab so mass handouts are being done to some extent. (I am pretty sure there was English on that brochure, or that it was half English and Chinese.....can anyone who has recently done a run to the airport and confirm this...)

[startide]

I have not been to China before but friends who have been have emailed me a fair share of the english translation of chinese words. To most people it hahaha reading those funny translations, but looking at the other side of the coin, can we not conclude that the chinese has come to the conclusion that visitors are 'stupid' (do not understand chinese) and therefore they have to do the translation. Except in Chinatowns (Vancouver, Los Angeles or San Francisco) where we can see chinese characters on the street signs, and not any other places. Isn't this speak volume that the chinese is try their very best to make life easy for visitors and therefore feel welcome? Anywhere I am of the opinion that the chinese characters sholud be kept with english added.