Ordinary Gweilo

The BBC had a story last week about the Beijing authorities efforts to improve the quality of English (Beijing stamps out poor English) and a follow-up with some examples sent in by readers (Signs in ‘Chinglish’).

This is indeed a rich vein of comedy, but one that is fraught with difficulties.  So I try to avoid throwing too many stones from this glass house.  Incidentally, I came across this site that attempts to explain why it is so difficult to translate from Chinese to English.

I do make a few exceptions to this rule.  Large international companies that must have access to native speakers really ought to check their translations before they are finalised…