MarketingProfs

If you missed the recent Wall Street Journal article on how Beijing is attempting to get rid of bad translations, you can read it here. The bottom line is that visitors to China have always delighted in the unusual English translations that appear on the nation’s signs….

Now, there’s talk to clean up their translation act. The WSJ writes,

“For years, foreigners in China have delighted in the loopy English translations that appear on the nation’s signs. They range from the offensive (“Deformed Man,” outside toilets for the handicapped) to the sublime (on park lawns, “Show Mercy to the Slender Grass”).
Last week, Beijing city officials unveiled a plan to stop the laughter. With hordes of foreign visitors expected in town for the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing wants to cleanse its signs of translation nonsense. For the next eight months, 10 teams of linguistic monitors will patrol the city’s parks, museums, subway stations and other public places searching for gaffes to fix.”

One recent fix: “Dongda Hospital for Anus and Intestine Disease Beijing.” The new sign: “Hospital of Proctology.”

Thanks to blogging, tourists and expatriates have been posting photographs of these gaffes. One blogger, mentioned in the WSJ article, makes a point of stating: “This is about passion, not mockery.” Check out the hilarious photos and stories he’s collected. Quoting the China Daily, he writes, “‘Welcome to come,’ instead of ‘Welcome.’ ‘Receives the silver’ rather than ‘Cashier’ these are just two examples of the more than 1,000 mistakes turned up by a recent campaign to clean up incorrect English usage in Beijing.”

Which brings me back to an article I wrote many moons ago for MarketingProfs: 8 Global Marketing Gaffes: Don’t Let Your Global Business Efforts Get Lost in the Translation!
I think it’s time to write a sequel to that piece. What’s your latest and greatest global marketing gaffe? Even better — got a picture to accompany it?