Zhang Yang

    nicolezyyy@163.com

    THE city’s foreign affairs office has launched a citywide operation to correct English mistakes on bilingual signs in public places.

    During the first on-site inspection yesterday, translation experts and journalists were invited to Shenzhen Museum, Shenzhen Concert Hall and Shenzhen Library to check the bilingual signs.

    Mike Bossick, an editorial consultant with the Translators Association of Shenzhen, said that most of the public signs were well translated, but some of them were too academic, like a textbook.

    For instance, there’s a bilingual signboard introducing the history of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone at Shenzhen Museum, and Bossick noticed that it had many academic terms rather than commonly used terms, which might not be readable enough for some visitors.

    Bossick hardly found any spelling mistakes or misnomers on public signs yesterday. “Most of the mistakes are the differences between Chinese and English. But I haven’t seen any major mistakes,” he said.

    Bossick has lived in Shenzhen for several years, and he said that the English level in Shenzhen has improved a lot over the past few years.

    Wu Xuewen, the association’s vice president, said that some bilingual signs in public places are too wordy and could be simplified, but he added that the translation of public signs in Shenzhen is generally much better than in many other Chinese cities.

    In a bid to avoid mistakes on public signs, the city’s foreign affairs office has hired experts to review bilingual signs before they are put into use in public places, Wu said.

    According to Zhou Han, a staffer with the city’s foreign affairs office, 10 more on-site inspections will be conducted by the end of May to check bilingual signs in 25 public places across the city, including popular theaters, galleries, libraries and museums.