Chinglish

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This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

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

Chinglish (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^[1]. There are an estimated 300 to 500 million users and/or learners of English in the People's Republic of China^[2].

The term "Chinglish" is mostly used in popular contexts and may have pejorative or derogatory connotations^[3]. The terms "Chinese English" and "China English" are also used, mostly in the academic community, to refer to developing Chinese varieties of English^[4] .

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.^[5] Signs that previously read: "To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty" were changed to read "Caution - slippery path".Another example: "confirming distance" (don't tailgate).^[6] Some Chinglish translations are grammatically correct but look strange anyway, owing to unfamiliarity with English culture and usage, or because of deficiencies in vocabulary.

Features

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Pronunciation

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.

Grammar

Chinglish reflects the influence of Chinese syntax and grammar^[7]; 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 sufficient to terminate a clause, with no need to follow with a conjunction. The equivalent of full stop (句號 "。") is usually reserved for the end of an idea, which theoretically may continue for an entire paragraph.^{[citation needed]}

Examples of Chinglish expressions

Sign for tourists in Sichuan China

Sign for tourists in Sichuan China

A sign on a Taipei government building door instructs the reader "to steek" gently, instead of using the more common word "to close down".

The following are several examples of Chinglish:^[6]

• To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty. (注意安全 坡道路滑) (Beijing) = Be careful, slippery slopes.^[8]
• Slip carefully (小心滑倒) = Be careful not to slip and fall. Scenes from Habitat for Humanity in Sichuan
• Be Cautious to slip (防滑地中 小心滑倒) = Note slippery ground so be cautious not to slip and fall. Also from Habitat for Humanity in Sichuan.
• 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.)

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

• Fuck the Certain Price of Goods (干货计价处 / 乾貨計價處) = 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.^[9] 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 (財務處處長) should be separated as "Financial Office" (財務處) + "Officer of" (處長), it could also literally be separated as "Financial Affairs" (財務) + "Everywhere" (處處) + "Long" (長), 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

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

References

External links

• Chinese EFL Journal [4] Chinese-English Language acquisition
• The Chinese-English, Chinglish Archives ChineseEnglish.com
• 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