This is why we teach...

This has been the source of laughter around the office...

... found in Taipei Times no less.

(click on images for larger view)

Acronym Madness!

"The most beautiful city......'in' the riverside. MeHAS."

There's this TV commercial here in Taipei that has been driving me crazy with its glaring grammar error in its English part. It's for a new apartment development in XinDian called MeHAS in English (美河市).

Dumb name right? Well it's an acronym: Metro （捷運）、 Environment （環境）、 Health （健康）、 Aesthetic （美學）、 Sustainability （永續）. It just so happens to also have the sound for Mei He Shi or 美河市.

It appears to be a play on another acronym, Lo-has, which you might see here and there in Taiwan. I saw it printed on a handbag. It means Life of Health and Sustainability wiki and it's a kind of marketing concept, something that is unfortunately lost on us non-marketing types.

Taiwanese do love their acronyms but often do not know the meanings. Although DIY (do it yourself) is well-known, you will often hear people use DM when talking about flyers or brochures. DM means one of two things, either Distributed Material or Direct Marketing. It depends on who you talk to.

Getting back to MeHAS, I noticed that the error in the TV commercial has since been corrected in a subsequent commercial from 'in' to 'on'. Yeah!

Also, I should point out that although this development's name is dumb, there are worse names used. Often housing developments in Taiwan take names of world destinations along the lines of Edinburgh, Riviera, New Europe, Beautiful New York and the like. It's easy to spot them since the Chinese characters used to represent the names are only used in the sound sense and not the meaning sense.

The most clever names are those that capture a Chinese meaning and a English title at the same time. The best example for this that I know is COSMED drugstore. In English you have the combination of cosmetics (COS) and medicine (MED). In Chinese it translates sound-wise and meaning wise as 康是美 which is Kang (Health) Shi (is) Mei (Beautiful). Very clever indeed!

If you have any other examples of acronyms or names that you want to share, drop me a line!

More Funy Chinglish

Here's a great example of some direct from Chinese to English translation from a place called Evans Burger ... with service that has the same feeling as a sofa.

(click on the pictures to see them bigger)

BTW, their business card reads:

"Stop the challenge from your stomach! You gotta know!"

So there!

Damn! More Engrish!

Anyway you read this one it's bizarre.

No idea what the 'online' part means since this is a street stall. But you know, everything is online these days so I guess tofu online is not so far-fetched.

More screwed up English signs...

I think one of the best places to see terrible English is at the rest stops along highways. There you can find all sorts of public announcements about rules and regulations.

Unfortunately, there is no regard for correct translations. Here are just a couple of hilarious results.

The first photo is talking about the regulations for driving through tunnels. If you break the rules, you will be fined 'ceaselessly' until the end of time.

The second is at a food stand. Both the sausage and the tofu names are pretty screwed up. However, the tofu should read charcoal barbecued stinky tofu. Instead a direct translation has changed charcoal into carbon.

Pet Peeve: "Of course!"

I'm starting to hate it when I ask my students a question and they answer "Of course!" In fact it's one of my pet peeves.

Here's an example of a typical conversation:

A: Did you see Spiderman 3 on the weekend?
B: Yes I did.
A: Did you like it?
B: Of course!

This obviously is an error seeing that there was no real way for me to know their response in advance (I feel like an idiot for not knowing now).

The mistake arises from translation. "Of course" in English has the feeling that the speaker should already know the answer. 當然 (dang ran) as it is written in Chinese has become a cliche among young Taiwanese, along with the regulars like "strange" 奇怪 and "cute" 可愛.

All these expressions are overused in Chinese. Beware!

Sent to me by a student...

...and very typical of English mistakes in Taiwan.