Beijing makes dent in bad English translations

BEIJING: Beijing has corrected over 6,500 traffic signs and will next target public toilets, museums and menus as it erases bad English translations before the 2008 Olympics, a city official said on Wednesday.

The host city is taking aim at sloppy and often hilarious translations that dot the city to avoid Olympic-sized embarrassment over menu items such as "fried crap" and attractions like the "Racist Park" -- a venue dedicated to ethnic minorities.

"So far I think we have achieved good progress in standardising English translations of signs," Liu Yang, a Beijing municipal official involved in the effort, told a press conference on the results of the campaign so far.

Launched last year, the campaign resulted in 6,530 transport-related signs in Beijing being revised or replaced by the end of 2006. More than 1,000 others were dealt with at tourist spots around the city.

"We are targeting public places that are closely related to the life, work study and travel of our foreign friends," Liu said.

Inspectors have fanned out looking for the offending language in an unprecedented effort affecting transport, medical, sanitation, tourist and other facilities that could be frequented by visitors from around the world for the August 2008 Games.

Besides the progress with road signs, Liu said 20,000 signs had been inspected in medical facilities.

"The error rate is relatively small and efforts are now under way to replace those wrong translations," he said.