The Shanghai Daily newspaper (上海日报 Shang4hai3 Ri4bao4) of Shanghai, China, has put up a Web site (202.101.38.80/art/2006/10/16/294376/New_Website_offers_English_fun.htm) [EDIT (5/29/10): dead link] to help university students improve their English, especially in preparation for the Shanghai World Exposition in 2010 (Expo 2010 official site).
The site includes the “Chinglish to English Public Campaign.” The Chinese name is rather different: 飞利浦杯上海日报公共标志纠错行动 Fei1li4pu3-bei1 Shang4hai3 Ri4bao4 Gong1gong4 Biao1zhi4 Jiu1cuo4 Xing2dong4, Philips Cup Shanghai Daily Public-Sign Correct-Errors Operation. People can submit photos of poor Chinese-to-English translations (Chinglish) from signs, plus possible corrections.
That’s a wonderful idea, but a few of the corrections could use a little improvement. For example, they’ve changed the first one on the first page from the un-English “Emergency For Use” to “For Emergency.” “For Emergency Use” would be better. However, that still seems too terse given that the Chinese reads “When it’s urgent to open the door, please use this switch” (紧急开门时请使用此开关 Jin3ji2 kai1men2 shi2, qing3 shi3yong4 ci3 kai1guan1). I think comparable American signs read something like “In Emergency, Push Lever to Open Door.” Good job, though, on changing “Clinie” to “First Aid” instead of the presumed “Clinic.” If space permits, “First Aid Station” for the 医疗点 (yi1liao2-dian3, medical-treatment place) would be better.
On the second page, they should have left “Pleasure Boat Wharf” alone (“Yacht Dock” doesn’t sound as nice) instead of changing it to “the (fun) boat wharf.” Pleasure boat (for 游船 you2chuan2) is a real term. Down the page, changing “Shanghai International Forum Healthy City” to “Shanghai International Health Forum” loses the “city.” I think they mean “Shanghai Healthy City International Forum” for the 上海健康城市国际论坛 (Shanghai Jian4kang1 Cheng2shi4 Guo2ji4 Lun4tan2). Clearer would be “Shanghai Healthy City’s International Plaza,” unless they mean “International Plaza of Shanghai – The City of Health.”
On the third page, they’ve changed “Caution the Step” and “Watch Head” (and “Be Careful Head”) to correct British English “mind your step” and “mind your head.” In American English those would be “Watch Your Step” and “Watch Your Head.” Further down they changed “Parkong Stereo Garage” to “Parking Garage.” That could be enough, but the literal “stereo (three-dimensional) parking garage” (立体停车库 li4ti3 ting2che1ku4) is Mandarin’s “multistory parking garage.” That might be important for some drivers.
Overall, this is an excellent endeavor.
In related news, back in August (2006), during the Shanghai Book Fair, Shanghai had Thomson Learning’s World Link (site) video English lessons on some buses. I had forgotten about this when I posted Language buses and more for EU last month.