Chinglish

File:Examineing the price service.jpg

The Chinglish translation on the sign ("To sell inside the commodity space all acceping money sipe supplys examineing the price service") are meant to signify, "All cashiers in the marketplace offer price-checking services."

Chinglish (also Chingrish) (simplified Chinese: 中式英语; traditional Chinese: 中式英語; pinyin: zhōng shì yīng yǔ) is a portmanteau of the words Chinese and English and refers to spoken or written English which is influenced by Chinese. There are an estimated 300 to 500 million users and/or learners of English in the People's Republic of China.

The term "Chinglish" is mostly used in popular contexts and may have pejorative or derogatory connotations. The terms "Chinese English" and "China English" are also used, mostly in the academic community, to refer to developing Chinese varieties of English .

History

Chinglish, at the most fundamental level, is bad English printed or spoken by Chinese people. There is no connection between Pidgin English and Chinglish: 19th century Chinese Pidgin English was a language that could be learned, and enabled Chinese and Westerners to communicate.

In Beijing, in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, the city authorities attempted to eliminate bad English on public signs and replaced it with better and correct English. Signs that previously read: "To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty" were changed to read "Caution - slippery path". Other notable examples include: "confirming distance" (keep space when driving,), and so on.

In Shanghai, the Shanghai Language Committee has hired SmithStreetSolutions, a professional services provider, to help revise guidelines for English translations in public places. The company will work with the committee to ensure that the new guidelines, which will apply to Expo-related signage and communications material, help prevent chinglish. SmithStreetSolutions CEO Franklin Yao said “We are very glad that we have the opportunity to make contributions to the Shanghai Expo and we will continue to do so in the future.”

Features

Pronunciation

In most dialects of Chinese, voiced obstruent consonants (/b/, /d/, /ɡ/, /dʒ/) do not exist properly. These dialects distinguish unvoiced aspirate and unvoiced unaspirate obstruents. Most Chinese perceive voiced obstruents as unvoiced unaspirates (e.g. /b/ becomes /p/), while unvoiced obstruents in other languages are all perceived as aspirate (e.g. /p/ becomes /pʰ/. This is reflected in several Romanization systems, notably Hanyu Pinyin (but not Wade-Giles). Thus, "buy" is pronounced /paɪ/, while "pie" remains /pʰaɪ/. When unaspirated obstruents occur in English (albeit non-phonemically) as in "spin" (/spɪn/), Chinese speakers would still pronounce them as if they were aspirate (/sɨ.ˈpʰin/). This applies equally to affricates, where "change", normally pronounced /tʃʰɛɪndʒ/, becomes /ˈtʃʰɛn.tʃi/ (or /ˈtɕʰɛn.tɕi/ if palatized).

In Cantonese pronunciation, some consonants are nowadays changed into other, for example N is often pronounced as L. Voiced sounds (/v/ and the /ʒ/ sound - eg. 'pleasure') cause difficulty. In speech, there is also a tendency to add the sound "see" or "chi" at the end of certain singular letters, such as the letters "S" and "H" ('es-see' and 'ay-chi' respectively).

Similarly, there are no syllable codas (consonants at the end of syllables) in Mandarin with the exception of the "n" and "ŋ" sounds. When encountering such codas, a Mandarin speaker will either modify the consonant to form a separate syllable, or drop it altogether. Thus, for example, CCTV presenters pronounce the letters "L", "M", and "N" as [aɪ lə] ("ai-le"), [aɪ mu] ("ai-mu") and [ən] ("n") respectively, while in Taiwan, the letter "L" is frequently pronounced [ɛ lɔ].

As all varieties of Chinese are tonal languages, Chinese speakers sometimes apply tonal attributes to English, which is normally a stress-based language. Stressed syllables are generally given higher and falling tones over unstressed syllables. This imparts a "staccato" quality to the accent, a feature shared by speakers of other tonal (or pitch-stressed) languages.

Vocabulary

The overuse of —ing, and the confusion of one word for another (a warning sign in Guilin)

Examples include "to put in Jingzhang Expressway" instead of "to Jingzhang Expressway"), and the use of "emergent" to mean "emergency" or "urgent". As another example, when something is explained, the English learner may respond with "Oh, I know," while the appropriate response would be "Oh, I see." This is because "知道 zhīdao" is usually translated as know regardless of context. "When did you first recognize him?" is also sometimes used for "When did you first meet him?" because "认识[認識] rènshi" is usually translated as recognize as in "I recognize him from last week's party."

The English words see, watch, read and look at are all represented by the Chinese word “看 kàn", and may be used interchangeably. The situation of speak, say and talk is similar. Phrases like "Can you say Chinese?", "I am watching a book", and "Tomorrow I will look a movie" may be common.

Another example is "turn on/off" versus "open/close". In Chinese, "turn on" (in the sense of operating a switch or a machine) and "open" are rendered by the same character, and so are "turn off" and "close". The two terms may be used interchangeably.

"Welcome you" is one of the more noticeable cases of Chinglish, especially on mainland China. This is used as a direct translation in Chinese, "歡迎". It can mean "welcome to," "we invite you to" or "you are welcome to", and is used more as an incentive to the activity introduced or as a form of "thank you". Its use is almost always cordial, inviting, or otherwise positive. Example:

• Welcome you to Beijing = Welcome to Beijing
• Welcome to ride Line 52 Bus = Thank you for riding Bus Line 52, or You are welcome to ride Bus Line 52.

It is a salutary exercise for all native English speakers, and a severe challenge, to explain why "Welcome you to Beijing" is grammatically incorrect. Not many are able to do so.

Bad English Grammar

Examples include:

• using "me is" instead of "I am" (such as "Me is Jack")
• using awkward gerunds (such as "No Noising")
• excessive use of "the" when not needed (such as "The China is bigger than the France", "The France is bigger than the Switzerland")
• excessive use of verbs with the "-ing" ending (such as "Please do not climbing"; in the photo above)
• excessive use of "to", the use of "to" with modals, preserving "to" in infinitive form even when unnecessary (e.g. "I must to go")
• excessive use of the structure of "can you help me ...?" instead of "can you ...?" (such as "can you help me hold my book for a sec?" vs. "can you hold my book for a sec?")
• confusion of -ed and -ing adjectives (e.g. "I am very boring" vs. "I am very bored"; "I was surprising" vs. "I was surprised")
• the overuse of "very" between "be" and an adjective (reflecting the use of Chinese 很 hen "very", e.g., very good very mighty)
• the use of "very" to modify verbs (e.g. "I very like it")
• the use of the singular when the plural would be more fitting (various examples can be seen in the park regulations above)

The above examples reflect the influence of Chinese syntax and grammar; in Chinese, verbs are not conjugated (either for tense or pronoun), and there is no equivalent word for "the."

Comma splices can occur frequently. This is because in Chinese writing, the comma (逗號 "，") is all that is sufficient to terminate a clause without needing to follow with a conjunction. The equivalent of full stop (句號 "。") is usually reserved for the end of an idea, which theoretically may last as long as a paragraph.

Examples of Chinglish expressions

A sign on a Taiwan government building door instructs the reader to "steek gently"

The following are several examples of Chinglish:

• To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty. (注意安全 坡道路滑) (Beijing) = Be careful, slippery slopes.
• Please Steek Gently = Please close door gently (关门 / 關門 is an entry in a Chinese-English dictionary yielding steek, archaic. To steek is actually Scottish dialect meaning to close, to shut.)

File:Hinet-Chinglish.jpg

Environmental awareness ad on a Taiwanese portal inviting readers to be green in order to "procrastinate" global warming.

• Fuck the Certain Price of Goods (干货计价处 / 乾[幹]貨計價處) = A translation of "Dry Goods Pricing Department" on a sign at supermarket in China. The merger of the traditional character for "dry" (乾) and the character meaning "to do" (幹), also commonly used to denote the vulgarity "fuck," into one single simplified character (干) [dry] likely led to this confusion. The characters comprising the word for "pricing" or "valuation" (计价 / 計價) can be translated separately as "certain" (计 / 計) and "price" (价 / 價).
• Financial Affairs is Everywhere Long (财务处处长 | 財務處處長) = Chief Financial Officer. Though this word (财务处处长) should be separated as "Financial Office" (财务处) + "Officer of" (处长), it could also literally be separated as "Financial Affairs" (财务) + "Everywhere" (处处) + "Long" (长), thus the confusion. This is most likely a product of machine translation, for no Chinese person would understand the word in such a way.

See also

• Engrish
• Hong Kong English
• Japlish
• Konglish
• Non-native pronunciations of English
• Singlish
• Hinglish
• Mute English

External links

• Chinese EFL Journal [3] Chinese-English Language acquisition
• Chinglish.com Chinese-English dictionary
• The Chinglish Collection : Pocopico.com
• The Chinglish Files
• Engrish.com Chinglish Collection
• LanguageMonitor.com Top Chinglish of the Year
• Collection of Chinglish Sayings