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https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/39122/1/Qi,%20Li%20(2016)%20The%20English%20language%20used%20by%20the%20Chinese%20.%20A%20new%20variety%20of%20English.pdf

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Introduction

Roughly 90,000 taxi drivers in Beijing learned English in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games (Beijing 2008) of some 600,000 total residents of the city that have jumped on the English bandwagon in the past few years ( People's Daily, 2001). China is a country of nearly a billion and a half people, most of whom now begin learning English at the age of ten (Dong, Reference Dong2005: 11). A simple Google search for 'English in China' yields more than 36,000,000 results! It cannot be argued that English is unpopular in the Middle Kingdom. With so many learners there, it stands to reason that a variety of English peculiar to China would eventually develop, and there is much evidence to suggest that it has already begun.

Prior to 1978, China was largely cut off from international contact, but the death of Mao Zedong two years earlier allowed for changes within the country's policy structure. From then on, a gradual modernisation programme was instituted that allowed for the development of a more open market economy. Thus, the English Boom was born, and, nowadays, hundreds of thousands of ESL teachers flock to China each year for annual contracts teaching at all levels, from primary upwards. The roles of English extend to all ends of the Chinese social spectrum: mass media to tourism, sport to government. This English Boom has spurred the development of localised varieties, as well as the so-called Chinglish phenomenon. Tourists and foreigners in China often make a habit out of photographing and collecting the 'funny English' found on signs around the country. Even Wikipedia has a lengthy article on the subject of Chinglish, with examples and photographs. YouTube is chock full of home-made videos on the subject, and every westerner in China wants to be an expert on the subject. Websites like Engrish ( 2006) and The Chinglish Files ( 2008) allow visitors to submit their own personal photos of 'Chinglished' signs, funny menus, or unusual product slogans.

All of these factors raise questions about the legitimacy of a localised variety of English that is unique to China. Does such a variety exist? Where do funny, nonsensical mistakes on signage meet valid local developing forms of English? What are Chinglish, Chinese English, and China English and are there any differences between them?

Chinglish, Chinese English, and China English

Based on the research of several noted linguists, including Ge Chuangui ( Reference Ge1983) and Li Wenzhong (1993), Wei Yun and Fei Jia ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) identify three stages in the development of the English that is spoken in China: Chinese Pidgin English (CPE), Chinglish as an interlanguage, and Chinese/China English (CE) as a developing world variety. While these categories hold much value, the grouping of Chinese and China English together is possibly too broad, and does not take into consideration the existence of entirely nonsensical forms of English that are the result of poor translations. Leaving the largely historical issue of Chinese Pidgin English aside, in this essay I will argue that Chinglish is not, in fact, an interlanguage, but a nonsensical, problematic form of English that is the result of poor translation, misspelling, and errors. Furthermore, I will separate and expand the categories of Chinese English and China English, suggesting that the former is an interlanguage that is used on a learner's path toward fluency and the latter is a developing world variety of English.

In discussing any non-native variety of English, it is first useful to examine Kachru's three circles of English (see Crystal, Reference Crystal1997). With the Inner Circle consisting of the varieties generally considered to be 'native' (e.g. UK or American English) and the Outer Circle comprising developed international varieties often found in former English colonies (e.g. India or Singapore), the outermost Expanding Circle will be the concern of this essay. China English, as I shall define it below, falls into this Expanding Circle category, along with Russia and other large geographical areas, making it the potentially largest group of English speakers on earth. Here, we can also talk about the 'nativisation' of a variety - how far along the variety is on its path to becoming truly localised. Butler (in Kirkpatrick & Xu, Reference Kirkpatrick and Xu2002) sets out five criteria for nativisation, including a) standard and unique pronunciation, b) a lexicon that expresses local ideas, c) history in the speech community, d) a written literature and e) a set of reference works. I follow Kirkpatrick & Xu's ( ibid.) assessment that China English falls into the class of a developing variety rather than an established variety, particularly because China English has, until now, only fulfilled the first three of Butler's criteria. Thus, for the purposes of this essay, China English (as it will be defined below) will be considered as a developing variety in Kachru's Expanding Circle. Several varieties of English have already developed among communities of Chinese speakers in other parts of the world, including Singapore English, Hong Kong English, and Malaysian English. This essay will be limited to the context of Mainland China English only and will not be concerned with the other varieties of Chinese-based English.

Defining Chinglish

As previously stated, Wei & Fei ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) define Chinglish as an interlanguage, usually manifested as Chinese-style syntax with English words, Chinese phonological elements in pronunciation or grammatical variations that attempt to follow Standard English rules but miss the mark (p. 43). As will be discussed later in this essay, I assert that these criteria should instead be used to define Chinese English as an interlanguage. Chinglish, then, is a nonsensical form of language, identifiable as an attempt at English, but usually produced by deficient translation devices or speakers/writers with a low skill level (though it may not always be possible to tell which of the two has caused any particular instance of Chinglish). By definition, then, the occurrence of Chinglish is generally confined to written forms where mistakes of expression or translation are made.

Examples of Chinglish

Figure 1 below is an easily definable example of Chinglish as a nonsensical, erroneous form of language. This sign was photographed at the top of a mountain path climb in rural Zhejiang province.

The phrase 回程道 ( huíchéng dào) can be glossed as 'return journey way' and translated as 'return route' or 'way back', which makes sense in the light of the sign's positional context, indicating the way back down the mountain. However, the obviously flawed 'English' translation listed below the Chinese could hardly be termed anything but nonsensical. The only part of the translation that appears to correlate with the actual Chinese meaning is 'back'; however, with the preceding 'rack' and the suffixed 't' added on, the word makes no sense.

Figure 2, taken near the Da Zha Lan Shopping Alley in Beijing's hutong district, may also be regarded as an example of Chinglish.

Here, the term 智力玩具 ( zhìlì wánjù) is translated as 'mental toy', while a more appropriate translation would be 'intellectual toy'. The concept of an 'intellectual toy' might arguably be a lexical item exclusive to China, as a Google search of the phrase in English yields only Chinese-based toy manufacturers (compared with 'educational toy' in other varieties of English). Thus, the term 'mental toy' might be classified as Chinglish because of its nonsensical nature and poor translation.

Figure 3 is a particularly interesting example of Chinglish signage, photographed at the same place as Figure 2, near Da Zha Lan Alley in Beijing.

The three characters 佛光阁 ( fó guāng gé) can be literally glossed as 'Buddha light shelf' and refer to a small Buddha-shaped lamp that is often manufactured and sold in areas of China frequently visited by tourists. This translation is an obvious case of Chinglish: 'Buddna' being a typo of Buddha, 'sheen' being a possible interpretation of 光, an adjective meaning shiny or lustrous, and 'cockloft' being a very antiquated British word for 'attic'. When translated through more sophisticated online software (Yellowbridge, 2008), 阁 receives hits as both 'shelf' and 'attic' which suggests that the phrase was translated via an out-of-date dictionary or software. Hence, this unintelligible phrase is a clear case of Chinglish as poor translation.

Defining Chinese English

Wei & Fei ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) group the terms Chinese English and China English together, suggesting that ' Chinese English has tended to be held in contempt by both native speakers and most Chinese' (p. 44), whereas China English is a more widely-accepted title for the developing variety of English that is now being spoken in China. Similarly, Hu ( Reference Hu and Chen2006) says that there is 'no clear distinction between the terms' Chinese English and Chinglish and describes them as being 'at the opposite ends of a continuum' (p. 231). I propose that it is dangerous to group together these two forms of English, because there are clear differences between the interlanguage spoken by Chinese learners of English (what I term Chinese English) and the maturing cultural variety of English that is developing, outlined later in this paper as China English.

Aspects of Chinese English

If we take Richards et al.'s ( Reference Richards1992) definition of interlanguage, we can see that it is:

If we look at Chinese English as an interlanguage, the descriptive rules of English at work are obvious, though not always in a 'native-like' fashion. Often, Chinese English is the product of errors made by learners as they advance in fluency level. Chinese syntax or sentence structure with English words might be used, or at other times erroneous but intelligible uses of grammatical patterns (e.g. wrong past tenses, present progressive, etc), erroneous word choice, or the wrong application of rule structures. These forms of interlanguage do not constitute a new variety in and of themselves, but are usually still understandable to native speakers despite the errors. According to Wei and Fei, 'Individual learners, in using English, translate more or less from Chinese and tend to ignore the basic grammatical structure of English' (2003, p. 43). In this way, Chinese English as an interlanguage may not differ significantly from the interlanguages used by other learners of English around the world. Example A is an excerpt from a transliterated version of a speech given by one of the author's Chinese secondary school students:

Example A: Chinese English

The student first fails to transform 'happy' from its adjectival form to its nominal form, 'happiness'. Though this does not render the sentence unintelligible, it is the product of an inexperienced speaker who will presumably learn its standard pattern with more practice. Furthermore, this pattern would be common and particular to Chinese English because, in Mandarin, adjectival and nominal forms are often the same (as in this case, where 高兴 ( gāoxìng) means 'happy', 'happiness' and 'to be happy').

In the second sentence, the student literally translates an idiom from Mandarin using a combination of Chinese syntax and English words: 哪里有你 那里有高兴 ( năli yŏu nĭ, nàli yŏu gāoxìng), which can be glossed as: 'where have you, there have happy'. It should be noted that the student incorrectly translates a second 'where' which should actually have been 'there'. This is an easy error to make, as the words for 'there' and 'where' in Mandarin are homophonic except for their tones: 哪里 năli - 3rd tone = where; 那里 nàli - 4th tone = there. Example B, taken from a second student's speech, demonstrates improper word choice as a component of Chinese English.

Example B: Chinese English

In the first sentence, she uses the word 'work' (a verb) where the word 'job' (a noun) would be standard. Like gāoxìng in the previous example, here 'work' and 'job' are synonymous in the Mandarin word 工作 ( gōngzuò) which carries both the verbal and nominal meanings. In the second sentence, she says 'I want everyone can help me', where the standard pattern would be 'to' instead of 'can' in the use of the infinitive 'to help'. Here, she uses a Chinese verb construction where a lack of verb conjugation in Mandarin means that it is entirely possible to place two verbs next to one another in a sentence. In Standard English, however, only conjugated and infinitive verb forms may be used side-by-side. Furthermore, her choice of the word 'can' reflects the Mandarin use of the word 会 ( huì), which means both ability and permission to do something.

Figure 4 was photographed at a civic museum in Zhejiang Province. It shows a very clear example of misapplied grammatical rules.

The translator obviously meant 'No photographing' or 'No photography', but instead used the same conjugational pattern as in 'No smoking' (where the final 'e' is dropped from 'smoke' and the suffix 'ing' is added) and misapplied it to the word 'photo' rendering the phrase unintelligible. When viewed in context to its partner sign, this becomes an obvious case of interlanguage, where a learner is not yet fluent in the appropriate use of grammar patterns. It would be out of place to label this as China English because the example is an obvious result of misuse rather than a developing new trend in language function.

Figure 5 is a similar final example of Chinese English as an interlanguage.

In this case, the translator obviously meant 'recyclable' and 'non-recyclable' with the phrases 'can't reusing' and 'can reusing'. Two things have happened in this case. First examining the nature of the Mandarin structure, 不可回收 ( bù kĕ huìshōu) and 可回收 ( kĕ huìshōu) can be glossed as 'cannot recycle' and 'can recycle' (from left to right in the photo), making clear why the initial structure of 'can't' and 'can' was used. However, a second pattern has occurred in the employment of the present progressive form 'reusing'. While it is obvious that 'reuse' is a suitable synonym for 'recycle', it is impossible to explain why the present progressive verb form was chosen. Nonetheless, here again it is not a new developing pattern of English but simply a misapplied grammar structure that, presumably, would not occur if the translator was more experienced using English.

Again, these fundamental mistakes do not render the sentences entirely unintelligible to a native speaker, but they are obviously errors resulting from the speaker's lack of practice using English rather than new patterns developing in a China variety of English. Since the phrases are clear despite the misused patterns, they cannot be defined as Chinglish. As well, the patterns are not necessarily new developing forms of English particular to China, so they cannot be called China English, as will be described in the third section below. They fall into this intermediary category of an interlanguage - Chinese English.

Defining China English

The term China English has, by now, been well defined by linguists over the past 20 years. One of the most quoted writers on this particular topic is Li Wenzhong, whose definition has been used by dozens of succeeding researchers. Kirkpatrick and Xu ( Reference Kirkpatrick and Xu2002) quote Li's definition of China English:

China English is based on a standard English, expresses Chinese culture, has Chinese characteristics in lexis, sentence structure and discourse but does not show any L1 interference. (p. 269)

The meaning of 'L1 interference' here is the type of grammatical misuse we have seen occurring in Chinese English, defined in this essay as an interlanguage. So, Li distinguishes between Chinese English, with L1 interference, where the language learner uses certain aspects of her native language (L1) when trying to speak a second language (L2), and China English, which he terms a developing new variety with its own lexicon, structure, and discourse. According to Xu, as quoted in Poon ( Reference Poon2006), there are at least four major features of China English: varied pronunciation and accent, particular lexical items, an idiosyncratic syntax, and distinct discourse varieties (p. 24). Wei and Fei ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) also list several excellent examples of these four aspects of China English, including specific aspects of China English syntax and discourse.

Pronunciation and accent

Though a detailed analysis of the phonology of China English is outside the scope of this essay, a few examples will be provided here.

/θ/ → /s/ Speakers of China English often substitute /s/ where a Standard English speaker would use /θ/. This is because Mandarin has no sound equivalent to the English /θ/, an unvoiced dental fricative, so speakers choose the next closest linguistic component available to them, an unvoiced alveolar fricative, as a substitute. /ð/ → /z/ or /ð/ → /d/ Similarly, the voiced dental fricative /ð/ changes to voiced alveolars, which are the closest phonemes available in Mandarin. Finally, because Mandarin is a monosyllabic, tonal language, there is a tendency for China English speakers to use a very staccato style of speaking, where an additional /ə/ is sometimes added on to the end of a morpheme or lexical item to make it more readily pronounceable. For example, the Standard English /kæt/ may change to /kætə/ in China English. As well, the tonal nature of Mandarin results in China English speakers 'adding' tones to English words where they do not exist, or changing the stressing of syllables.

Lexical items

As Jian Yang ( Reference Yang2005) points out, 'borrowing has long been recognized as an important part of the nativization that English has undergone' (p. 425). To accurately talk about borrowings, it would be useful to define several terms, as there have been many arguments on the various expressions used regarding this subject. Though many definitions have been put forward, I will use Suzanne Romaine's (1995) definitions, as follows:

* loanblend - one part of a word is borrowed and the other belongs to the original language.

* loanshift - taking a word in the base language and extending its meaning so that it corresponds to that of a word in the other language.

* loan translation - rearranging words in the base language along a pattern provided by the other and thus creating a new meaning. (Romaine, Reference Romaine1995: 56-7)

Lexical innovations in China English mostly fall into one of these three categories, but to stay within scope here, I will only give some examples rather than provide lengthy discussions of how each example should be sorted according to the above categories.

In short, China English lexical items are words that can be easily recognised as English; however, they generally express ideas or things specific to Chinese culture and are therefore useless or even meaningless in the context of standard, native, or international Englishes. Distinctive examples of China English lexical items include such terms as autonomous region, colour wolf, dragon boat, little red cap, Mid-Autumn festival, one country two systems, red envelope, and special administrative region.

Although these words and phrases can easily be identified as English, their meaning is often inaccessible to English speakers outside China. For instance, the phrase colour wolf is a direct loan translation from Mandarin, roughly equivalent to 'sex maniac'. And, although a speaker of other varieties of English would easily be able to visualise a red envelope in its literal sense, within the Chinese cultural context, the phrase refers to a special monetary gift, often given at Chinese New Year or to exchange favours. So, these lexical items are very clearly Chinese in context and culture, and not fully comprehensible to users of English outside the Chinese context.

Syntax

Wei and Fei ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) provide a lengthy discussion of China English syntax with examples of six features of variation, including (i) word order differences, (ii) open head vs. open end, (iii) time sequence, (iv) compound and complex sentence structures, (v) special subjects and (vi) the use of the passive voice (pp. 44-5). Let us take as an example feature (ii), open head vs. open end, where, in China English, subordinate clauses are often put in front of main clauses. Example C is taken from a personal email to the author.

Example C: China English grammar (1)

As I am currently in China with an ABQ delegation doing projects of business, medical consulting, fashion-textile design, and Chinese investment to the US, I could not come myself.

In Standard written English, this might be phrased:

I could not come myself, as I am currently in China with an ABQ delegation doing projects [...]

following the pattern main clause + subordinate clause. Kirkpatrick and Xu ( Reference Kirkpatrick and Xu2002) point out that this phenomenon often occurs with 'because' as a forward pointing discourse marker at the beginning of a sentence. Example D shows this in another personal email.

Example D: China English grammar (2)

Because he can not reply you in time, I contact you directly. I hope my English won't let you down.

Though this may cause confusion for a native speaker for whom 'because' is a signifier that important information has already been transmitted, for China English speakers, 'because' is often placed first in a sentence in the Chinese language, and this structure is often transferred into English.

Discourse

Far less research has been done with regard to the discourse patterns of China English, although Kirkpatrick and Xu ( Reference Kirkpatrick and Xu2002) point out a striking feature of written discourse patterns in China English, where 'facework' plays an important role:

The first half of the letter is taken up with what Scollon and Scollon (1991) have called 'facework'. Then the writer introduces the reasons for a particular request and then, finally, makes the actual request. We could simplify the schema to: Salutation, Facework, Reason/Justification, Request, Sign off. (p. 274)

With this pattern in mind, let us examine Example E, a personal email to the author of this article:

Example E: Discourse features of China English

Salutation: Hello ...

Facework: I am [author] (I am Chinese), the colleague of [name] (our foreign advisor). Because he can not reply you in time, I contact you directly. I hope my English won't let you down.

Reason/Justification: It was a long time since my last mail. We are so glad to hear the news that you agree to write for us. Your experience and story is very valuable for our website and tourists. We are hoping to get your story as soon as possible. We will pay you due the time we got the stroy. [sic] So don't worry about that. We have been in business since 1998 and enjoy high reputation home and abroad. I appreciate your writing style and creative idea. It is a happy experience to write to you.

Request: So could you tell me how many stories do you have in hand or be going to write? What price do you charge for your story? When can you finish your story and send it or them to us?

Sign off: I am looking forward to your reply!

Best wishes,

Author

As we can see, this email clearly follows the pattern described in Kirkpatrick and Xu. First, the author introduces himself with a salutation. Next, he engages in facework, whereby he creates 'good face' by complimenting the recipient and noting his connection to her via a third party. Third, he shows his reason and justification for writing while still employing further facework in phrases like 'Your experience and story is very valuable.' Finally, he signs off by asking for a reply and sending best wishes. This type of discourse pattern is very particular to users of China English, especially in the Chinese cultural context where face represents a critical social concept. So, it makes sense that the breadth of the communication is taken up by discourse efforts toward positive facework and justification, whereas the same letter in Standard English would display the request with far less concern for them. China English is unique across the linguistic spectrum, from phonology to discourse. In the light of Butler's five criteria for nativisation, it is obviously still a developing variety, but the aspects shown above suggest that China English is on its way to becoming an established variety of English.

Conclusion

This essay has examined three types of English that exist in Mainland China, distinguishing particularly between Chinglish and Chinese English, which have been grouped together by previous linguists. Chinglish can be viewed as an erroneous form of language that is the result of poor translation, and it generally only exists in written form. Chinese English is an interlanguage used by Mandarin-speaking English learners in China. It is easily understood as being English by Inner Circle speakers, but it often contains so-called L1 interference, or Mandarin structural features. Misplaced or errantly used grammatical patterns are another characteristic of Chinese English. Finally, China English is a developing world variety of English. It has unique features including phonology, lexicon, syntax, and discourse patterns, and therefore it fulfils three out of Butler's five criteria toward becoming a nativised variety. As China develops socially and opens economically over the next decade, the use of English there will only be widened and further refined into an established Expanding Circle World English.

This Is China: A Guidebook for Teachers, Backpackers and Other Lunatics (Lulu, 2009). Email: megan.eaves@gmail.com

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English, Chinglish or China English? | English Today | Cambridge Core

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Roughly 90,000 taxi drivers in Beijing learned English in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games (Beijing 2008) of some 600,000 total residents of the city that have jumped on the English bandwagon in the past few years ( People's Daily, 2001).

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https://factsanddetails.com/china/cat4/sub16/item123.html

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https://www.polilingua.com/blog/post/interesting-facts-about-the-chinese-language.htm

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Asian languages are fundamentally different from European ones. It is not enough to learn the rules of grammar, spelling of words and have a rich vocabulary well. It is necessary to learn to understand Asian languages from the inside, to feel intuitive.

Only many years of experience makes it possible to penetrate deeply into the language and work with it.

The Chinese language is considered one of the most difficult due to the variety of dialects, the difficult specifics of pronunciation, and many other reasons. However, getting to know this language can be very exciting.

Did you know? ... these 6 amazing facts about the Chinese language!

There are two variants of Chinese characters: simplified (mainland China) and traditional (Hong Kong, Taiwan). What does it look like? For example, the word "book" in Traditional Chinese is 書, in simplified Chinese: 书.

1. Famous people are increasingly choosing Chinese to study. For example, Mark Zuckerberg at Peking University made a speech in Chinese, and Prince William wished a Happy New Year in Chinese in his interview.

2. Science has proven that Chinese speakers use both temporal lobes of the brain at the same time.

3. Chinese has incredibly simple grammar. It has no genders, no plurals, no verb conjugations, not even punctuation. If not for the hieroglyphs, it could be the simplest language in the world.

4. Nevertheless, for its complexity, the Chinese language got into the Guinness Book of Records. The complexity of the Chinese language is due to both the hieroglyphic writing and the reliance on tonality (depending on the tone, the same seemingly word can have up to four meanings. Classic example: 妈 [mā] in the first tone translates as "mother", and 马 [mă] in the third tone - like "horse").

5. Chinese youth use digital codes to communicate online. With the help of a set of numbers, a special communication system with frequently used phrases was developed. For example, 520 - "I love you", 065 - "I'm sorry."

6. Chinese is an amazing language, rich in dialects, one of the oldest languages, and the most widely spoken in the world (it is spoken by more than 1.3 billion people) - one of the most difficult languages to translate. To perform a truly high-quality translation, a specialist must have extreme attention to details, meanings and tones (when it comes to interpretation).

What is special about the Chinese characters and language?

As we all already know, each language has its own characteristics and Chinese is no exception. No one will argue that this language is quite interesting and peculiar. Here are some of its characteristic properties:

1. Phonetic system. It includes a complex of vowels and consonants and four syllable tones. Much depends on intonation, since most words are the same in spelling, but, depending on intonation and pronunciation, have different meanings. Quite often, this scares off people who want to learn Chinese.

2. Hieroglyphs and writing. A hieroglyph is a syllable, and words can consist of several syllables or one. The most common variant is two-syllable words, that is, words consisting of a pair of hieroglyphs. An interesting fact is that many Chinese surnames consist of only one character. In general, hieroglyphics have about forty thousand characters. But do not be intimidated - in order to understand and communicate with native Chinese speakers, it is enough to know about two thousand characters. When studying the Chinese language, you will encounter a complete absence of declensions, genders and cases, as well as with the same structure of sentences or phrases.

3. Punctuation. Thanks to hieroglyphics, punctuation marks are completely absent in China. This will greatly speed up your language learning time.

4. Dialectal and regional differences. There are seven dialects in China. As a rule, people belonging to different groups of dialects do not quite understand each other when communicating.

The way out in this situation is the national language of Mandarin. Putonghua is a language that brings together people from different dialectal groups.

If you decide to study Chinese, then Mandarin Chinese is exactly what you need. With its help, you will be able to communicate freely, as well as read and write without any difficulty.

Dialects in the language

The Chinese language is a collection of a large number of dialects that differ in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. There are 7 main groups of it: Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese or Yue, Min, Hakka, Gan and Xiang. In addition to dialects, there are variations within each of them, they differ in stress or pronunciation of sounds.

For example, standard Mandarin sounds differently in different cities in China. The division of the Chinese language into dialectal groups is due to geographical or historical factors. Each of the dialects has all the criteria to have the status of a separate language, but a single script for the whole of China ensures the integrity of the Chinese language.

After the establishment of Mandarin as the official language, many began to consider it the real language.

How do Chinese people communicate?

Linguists traditionally have eight to twelve groups of dialects of modern Chinese. They are very different from each other, and the inhabitants of the northern provinces do not at all understand their compatriots from the southern provinces and vice versa.

Number of hieroglyphs

It is believed that in modern Chinese there are 50,000 to 100,000 characters. A small part of them is used, and the rest is the inheritance of ancient Chinese manuscripts.

Some sources say that for reading periodicals and literature, using the local Internet, watching popular science TV programs, documentaries and the rest, it is enough to know 10,000 hieroglyphs. Knowledge of 5000 will allow you to communicate well with native speakers and the ability not to lose the essence of the conversation.

Number of words in a language

Roughly, in modern Chinese, in which individual characters can represent a whole word, there are about 370,000 "valid" words. Some sources claim that there are 500,000 of them.

What is Chinese keyboard Chinese keyboard

On a personal computer, input is carried out through the menu "Language and regional standards" - "Language and keyboards" - "Change keyboard". You can also enter hieroglyphs using the Google service, InputKing, Chinese Tools, TypingChienese, ChinDict

Is Chinese Mandarin?

Chinese has a large number of dialects. The official language is Mandarin (Mandarin), a northern dialect. In English, Mandarin means Mandarin. The old name of Mandarin translates as "the language of officials" - it was believed that the nobility spoke it. In Portugal, officials were called tangerines, and from Portuguese the word came to English.

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Interesting facts about the Chinese language

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Asian languages are fundamentally different from European ones. It is not enough to learn the rules of grammar, spelling of words and have a rich vocabulary well. It is necessary to learn to understand Asian languages from the inside, to feel intuitive.

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Kristen Chan, Jacky Chung, Mindy Fan, Kruger Lee

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What Is Chinglish?
Chinglish, sometimes written as Chingrish, means spoken or written English language that is influenced by the Chinese Language. The term "Chinglish" is mostly applied to phrases not following grammatical rules, words that make no sense or simply Chinese words written using the English alphabet using sounds (Chinese Pidgin English). Other terms used to describe this "language" include "Chinese English" and "China English".

Examples include:
- 小心滑落 (Beware of Falling Down) translated as "Slip Carefully"
-請勿觸摸 ( Do Not Touch) translated as "No Ouching"

What is Chinese Pidgin English?
Chinese Pidgin English, also called Pidgeon English is a pidgin (grammatically simplified from of language) language based on English, but influenced by Chinese. From the 17th to the 19th century, Chinese Pidgin English was also spoken in Cantonese. This was also the origin for the Chinglish present in Hong Kong.

Pidgin is not a language for any specific type of people, it is a language which is developed when people who speak different languages communicate with each other. A part of Chinglish also refers to Chinese Pidgin English and it was first spoken in the Cantonese speaking areas of China like Hong Kong and Guangdong.

Examples include:
- 人山人海 (A lot of People) written as "People Mountain People Sea"
-我唔知點同你講 (I don't know how to say it) translated as "ngo mm zhi dim tong nei gong"

Who Uses Chinglish?
Most people who speak a Chinese dialect (Mandarin, Cantonese et cetera) speak Chinglish. This is because it is very hard for them to learn a language that is completely different to your mother tongue and in a non-English environment.

When Do People Use Chinglish?
Chinglish is spoken by Chinese people that try to act like someone who speaks English. It is also commonly used in Hong Kong people's text messages, Chinglish is also sometimes used for humor purposes as the translations are often quite funny.

Where Did Chinglish Come From?
Chinese Pidgin English was the first form of Chinglish. It first started when English arrived in China during 1637. People who spoke only English and people who spoke only Cantonese could not communicate. Therefore, Chinese Pidgin English was invented to comunicate between the British people and the Cantonese speakers at that time.

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What Is Chinglish? Chinglish, sometimes written as Chingrish, means spoken or written English language that is influenced by the Chinese Language. The term "Chinglish" is mostly applied to phrases not following grammatical rules, words that make no sense or simply Chinese words written using the English alphabet using sounds (Chinese Pidgin English).

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https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1080893.pdf

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https://www.chinatalk.nl/chinglish/

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Unfortunately closed today ...

Over the years of living, working and travelling in China I have built up a large collection of pictures of Chinglish texts in toilets, tourist attractions and other places. For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon, the always helpful Urban Dictionary defines Chinglish as:
Broken English produced by people whose mother tongue is Chinese, that results from one or more of the following:

translating Chinese sentences on a word-by-word basis, instead of conveying the intended meaning (e.g. translating "wǒ hěn xǐhuan" as "I very like" instead of "I like it a lot")

using faulty translation software and not bothering to check whether the translation is correct (e.g. translating "sàn gānguǒ" as "Spread to fuck the fruit" instead of "loose dried fruits")

using obscure or slang words instead of the more common synonym (e.g. translating "Guānmén" as "steek" instead of "close", or translating "Shǒuzhǐ" as "bumf" instead of "toilet paper")

falling victim of absurd translations provided as jokes (e.g. translating "tāotiè" as "exterminate capitalism" instead of "tantalizing")

In my collection you will find different examples of all these categories. I have also included examples of extreme sloppiness like missing characters or spaces and displays of very bad understanding of the English language (cases I normally refer to as 'the local party secretary's nephew strikes again').

Besides many signs and company names I have also included strange pieces of clothing I have come across. English texts are often considered fashionable in China but sometimes, especially outside the bigger cities, people have no clue what the text means. In many cases the text is just gibberish, but I have also seen cases where they were just hilariously inappropriate. As such it's comparable to the many fails of people getting a tattoo with Chinese characters.
Disclaimer: all of this is meant in a light-hearted way and not meant to ridicule the efforts of the Chinese people. Even failed attempts at translations can be extremely helpful for those who don't read Chinese. And as somebody that has asked for a 大火鸡 in a tobacco shop I am very aware that mistakes can be easily made, not to mention all of the times I have screwed up the tones when speaking Chinese.
To view my Google Photos Album with a collection of close to 200 Chinglish texts, please click the button below. Hope you enjoy it.

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Over the years of living, working and travelling in China I have built up a large collection of pictures of Chinglish texts in toilets, tourist attractions and other places. For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon, the always helpful Urban Dictionary defines Chinglish as: Broken English produced by people whose mother tongue is Chinese, that results [...]

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how britain could come to china

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The first phase of the forceful penetration of China by western Europe came in the two Opium Wars. Great Britain had been buying increasing quantities of tea from China, but it had few products that China was interested in buying by way of exchange. A resulting steady drain of British silver to pay for the tea was eventually stopped by Great Britain's ascendancy in India. With British merchants in control of India's foreign trade and with the financing of this trade centred in London, a three-way exchange developed: the tea Britain bought in China was paid for by India's exports of opium and cotton to China. And because of a rapidly increasing demand for tea in England, British merchants actively fostered the profitable exports of opium and cotton from India.

An increasing Chinese addiction to opium fed a boom in imports of the drug and led to an unfavourable trade balance paid for by a steady loss of China's silver reserves. In light of the economic effect of the opium trade plus the physical and mental deterioration of opium users, Chinese authorities banned the opium trade. At first this posed few obstacles to British merchants, who resorted to smuggling. But enforcement of the ban became stringent toward the end of the 1830s; stores of opium were confiscated, and warehouses were closed down. British merchants had an additional and longstanding grievance because the Chinese limited all trade by foreigners to the port of Canton.

In June 1840 the British fleet arrived at the mouth of the Canton River to begin the Opium War. The Chinese capitulated in 1842 after the fleet reached the Yangtze, Shanghai fell, and Nanking was under British guns. The resulting Treaty of Nanking-the first in a series of commercial treaties China was forced to sign over the years-provided for: (1) cession of Hong Kong to the British crown; (2) the opening of five treaty ports, where the British would have residence and trade rights; (3) the right of British nationals in China who were accused of criminal acts to be tried in British courts; and (4) the limitation of duties on imports and exports to a modest rate. Other countries soon took advantage of this forcible opening of China; in a few years similar treaties were signed by China with the United States, France, and Russia.

The Chinese, however, tried to retain some independence by preventing foreigners from entering the interior of China. With the country's economic and social institutions still intact, markets for Western goods, such as cotton textiles and machinery, remained disappointing: the self-sufficient communities of China were not disrupted as those in India had been under direct British rule, and opium smuggling by British merchants continued as a major component of China's foreign trade. Western merchants sought further concessions to improve markets. But meanwhile China's weakness, along with the stresses induced by foreign intervention, was further intensified by an upsurge of peasant rebellions, especially the massive 14-year Taiping Rebellion (1850-64).

The Western powers took advantage of the increasing difficulties by pressing for even more favourable trade treaties, culminating in a second war against China (1856-60), this time by France and England. Characteristically, the Western powers invading China played a double role: in addition to forcing a new trade treaty, they also helped to sustain the Chinese ruling establishment by participating in the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion; they believed that a Taiping victory would result in a reformed and centralized China, more resistant to Western penetration. China's defeat in the second war with the West produced a series of treaties, signed at Tientsin with Britain, France, Russia, and the United States, which brought the Western world deeper into China's affairs. The Tientsin treaties provided, among other things, for the right of foreign nationals to travel in the interior, the right of foreign ships to trade and patrol on the Yangtze River, the opening up of more treaty ports, and additional exclusive legal jurisdiction by foreign powers over their nationals residing in China.

Foreign privileges in China

Treaties of this general nature were extended over the years to grant further privileges to foreigners. Furthermore, more and more Western nations-including Germany, Italy, Denmark, The Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and Austria-Hungary-took advantage of the new opportunities by signing such treaties. By the beginning of the 20th century, some 90 Chinese ports had been opened to foreign control. While the Chinese government retained nominal sovereignty in these ports, de facto rule was exercised by one or more of the powers: in Shanghai, for example, Great Britain and the United States coalesced their interests to form the Shanghai International Settlement. In most of the treaty ports, China leased substantial areas of land at low rates to foreign governments. The consulates in these concessions exercised legal jurisdiction over their nationals, who thereby escaped China's laws and tax collections. The foreign settlements had their own police forces and tax systems and ran their own affairs independently of nominally sovereign China.

These settlements were not the only intrusion on China's sovereignty. In addition, the opium trade was finally legalized, customs duties were forced downward to facilitate competition of imported Western goods, foreign gunboats patrolled China's rivers, and aliens were placed on customs-collection staffs to ensure that China would pay the indemnities imposed by various treaties. In response to these indignities and amid growing antiforeign sentiment, the Chinese government attempted reforms to modernize and develop sufficient strength to resist foreign intrusions. Steps were taken to master Western science and technology, erect shipyards and arsenals, and build a more effective army and navy. The reforms, however, did not get very far: they did not tackle the roots of China's vulnerability, its social and political structure; and they were undertaken quite late, after foreign nations had already established a strong foothold. Also, it is likely that the reforms were not wholehearted because two opposing tendencies were at play: on the one hand, a wish to seek independence and, on the other hand, a basic reliance on foreign support by a weak Manchu government beset with rebellion and internal opposition.

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Western colonialism - Western colonialism - The Opium Wars: The first phase of the forceful penetration of China by western Europe came in the two Opium Wars. Great Britain had been buying increasing quantities of tea from China, but it had few products that China was interested in buying by way of exchange.

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https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/english-levels-in-china.htm#:~:text=Despite%20English%20being%20taught%20in,conversational%2C%20according%20to%20some%20estimates.

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English in China may leave you wondering what the meaning is supposed to be.

Find out all about English usage in China here: the quality of English in China, where English is spoken, how good the signage is, English education in China, and apps and tips to help you overcome the language barrier.

How Good is China's English?

Despite English being taught in the Chinese school system for many years, few Chinese could be considered fluent in English.

There are hundreds of millions of people in China studying English, but less than 1% of people from Chinese mainland are conversational, according to some estimates. Not surprisingly, more English is spoken in China's large cities than in the smaller towns.

Don't panic! You should encounter few problems at the airport, at 4- and 5-star hotels, popular restaurants, major shops, and banks. Chinese staff at these places are generally competent in communicating with native English speakers.

A Brief History of English in China

The first schools to teach English were missionary schools in Macau in the early 17th century. English was gradually integrated into China's education system in the 1960s, when Russian fell out of favor.

After a short period of denunciation during the Cultural Revolution, English language education was revived in the early 1970s and thrived under the economic reform policies of the Deng Xiaoping government.

Since the 1990s, English has become popular especially with those working in tourism and trade.

English loanwords in China include:

English in Chinese Schools

Many people in China, especially young adults and a growing number of children, can speak basic English words and phrases like "hello", "OK", "thank you", and "how are you?" But by no means are most Chinese conversational in English.

The language can be incredibly difficult for Chinese people to learn. Imagine trying to adjust to the rules, quirks, and sometimes seemingly arbitrary constructions of English when your native tongue has no articles, verb conjugations, and plurals!

Many children start learning English in kindergarten. English is mandatory in Chinese schools, starting from at grade one and continuing through junior and senior high school.

Quality of education depends largely if the student lives in a city or a rural area. Students from cities generally have access to superior teachers, materials, and classrooms than do their rural counterparts. While the school curriculum includes an English-language component, the reality is that only Chinese is taught in many rural schools.

Because costs are high to attend senior high schools, most students from rural areas choose to attend vocational schools in order to find employment quickly after graduating. This effectively ends their English-language education.

Despite all of the effort that goes into promoting, teaching, and learning English, some Chinese view it as having limited usefulness within their country. At the same time, English is recognized as the universal language of business, and there are thousands of private English-language schools in China, including web-based ones. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students are studying online with English-language teachers in China and around the world.
Learn more about education in China
China's English Proficiency Vs Nearby Countries

According to some estimates, fewer than 10 million Chinese, or less than 1% of the population, speak English.

In Hong Kong, a special administrative region, English is an official language; about 50% of the population speak it, though most in that category would not consider themselves fluent.

In nearby Macau (also a special administrative region) the situation is similar: About 28% of residents can speak at least basic English.

EF's English Proficiency Index 2018 ranks China at Low Proficiency. How does that compare to other countries in the region?

Singapore - Very High Proficiency

Philippines - High Proficiency

India - Moderate Proficiency

Vietnam - Moderate Proficiency

South Korea - Moderate Proficiency

Bangladesh - Low Proficiency

Thailand - Low Proficiency

Japan - Low Proficiency

China 1% - Low Proficiency

Myanmar - Very Low Proficiency

Level of Spoken English and Signage in China

Generally, you'll find more and better English speakers and signage in China's well-known, big urban areas in the north, east, and south (think Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong). You should have few problems communicating in basic English at sights that see a lot of foreign travelers.

It's possible that Shanghai has the most English speakers of any big city in Chinese mainland. And Hong Kong, according to the EF English Proficiency Index 2018, ranked at Moderate Proficiency.

In rural areas you'll see and hear less English. This is also true if you decide to explore the more local neighborhoods of cities. Keep in mind that many Chinese are hesitant to speak even basic English for fear of making mistakes.

Further west, and in remote areas of China, it's possible English will be nonexistent. In Urumqi, a city of several million in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, English levels are quite low all around. Even staff at major hotels may not be competent in basic English.

The quality of English translations at landmarks, temples, museums, theme parks, and galleries varies. Sometimes you'll glean information that helps you do something or enhances your experience, other times you'll be left scratching your head. Or there might not be any English signage at all.

If you decide to tour China with us, our guides and drivers will ensure smooth and accurate communication the whole way, from transportation and restaurants to sightseeing.

Transportation Signage in China

Limited English is displayed in train stations in China.

You'll find English signage at all of China's major airports. There is some English at train stations. Ticketing agents will usually have a good grasp of English, especially at major airline counters.

Subway systems in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Xi'an, Chengdu, and Chongqing have English signage, and ticketing machines have an English interface. Most of these systems announce stops in English.

With taxis, it's probably best to assume that drivers will not speak or understand English - even in Hong Kong. Bring a business card or have your destination written down in Chinese characters.

Buses in Beijing are tricky to use if you don't speak or read Mandarin. Drivers and staff speak little English and few stops are announced in English. This contrasts with Shanghai, where stops are announced, and Hong Kong, where most buses announce and display stops in English. In Xi'an some buses that run to the more popular sites have English displays. Buses in Chengdu and Urumqi do not have English signage.

It may not always be easy to get directions in English, depending on where you are and who you ask. If you're at The Bund in Shanghai, or a similarly busy tourist area, chances are good that you'll find a local who can help you.

Nearly all road traffic signs in Beijing and Shanghai have English on them. In Hong Kong, traffic signage must have English by law.

Menus in China

Most premium restaurants will have an English menu. You'll also find English menus at tourist restaurants in the major cities and at some popular sights. At small street-side restaurants and outside of the big cities, English menus can be few and far between.

What's written on the menu and what you get on your plate might not be the same thing, and translations can be flawed - often with unintentionally humorous or even shocking results!

Some menus lack pictures, compounding the frustration. The staff's English skills will vary depending on the type of restaurant; is it mostly locals or packed with tourists? If it's the latter then you can expect a basic level of English, though some snack vendors at touristy spots might know a few common English words or numbers.

Menus are usually divided into sections according to food type. This might be somewhat helpful if you're able to decipher at least one dish....

Apps like Google Translate can translate speech and text in images, but don't expect them to be perfect. (Read more below in the section Apps.)
Chinese Restaurant Menus and How to Use Them
English on Products and Packaging in China

English slogans on products should perhaps be seen as a designer's effort to appear "internationally-minded" rather than as a genuine attempt at meaningful communication.

Wording is often nonsensical ... and sometimes inadvertently offensive!

You might come across bewildering English printed on everything from t-shirts and coffee cups to advertisements, no matter where you are traveling in China. These can make for funny souvenirs for friends back home.

Helpful Communication Tools You Can Use in China

The Effective Language Learning Center says Mandarin and Cantonese are among the most difficult languages for a native English user to learn. It is no doubt equally difficult for Chinese speakers to learn and use English. Thankfully, there are other ways to communicate besides speaking and listening.

Body Language and Gestures

Body language and hand signs share similar meanings to those in the West, and can be an effective communication tool while in China.

Charades and gestures can be particularly effective at restaurants and when asking for directions.

Remember: Point at something or someone with your entire hand; pointing with only a finger is considered rude.
Learn more about useful hand signs in China
Apps

Translation apps work more or less the same way, share the same basic features, and can be used offline if you download language packs. What follows is by no means an exhaustive list.

WeChat: Online, Android, iOS, Mac OS, Windows

WeChat is the most popular all-round digital communication tool in China; more people use it than don't. You can download an international version, which has a translation function.

Key feature: does just about everything

Google Translate: Online and app (Android and iOS)

Key feature: real-time speech and text image translation

Important: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other similar web products from the West are blocked in Chinese mainland. You could set up a VPN (virtual private network) before your trip. This would allow you to access all of these blocked products while in China. Keep in mind that, sometimes, even access to the VPN is blocked. For email, you could get a Yahoo! or Hotmail account and then delete it when you get home.

iTranslate: Android, iOS, Mac OS, Windows

Key feature: Converts Chinese characters into pinyin (Latin letters)

Microsoft Translator: Online, Windows desktop, Android, iOS

Key feature: Translates voice and text in real time

TripLingo: Android, iOS

Key feature: There is a function to speak to a live human translator

China's top telecommunication companies, China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile, offer customer services in English.
The Top 15 Apps for China Travelers
New to VPNs? Read about the best virtual private networks for China.

Pen and Paper

Write a word or phrase in English and chances are good it can be scanned by someone's phone and almost instantly translated to Chinese.

In the event that you can't write Chinese characters or pinyin, you'll most likely be able to get your hotel's reception, tour guide, or even restaurant staff to do it for you, if the restaurant sees a lot of Western tourists.

Business cards can be lifesavers. Pick up and stash your hotel's card so that you'll have it when you need to reference it. Many business cards in China have both Chinese and English printed on them.

Take the Guesswork Out of Communication and See China with Us

Our guides will take care of you in China and their English skills will help you get far more out of your China trip.

Dreaming of your first trip to China but worried about language issues? Our tours remove the communication barrier. We do the planning, driving, and guiding; you relax and enjoy your trip.

Consider these popular itineraries:

We can even tailor-make your tour. Just tell us the things you're most interested in seeing and we'll take it from there.

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English in China may leave you wondering what the meaning is supposed to be. Find out all about English usage in China here: the quality of English in China, where English is spoken, how good the signage is, English education in China, and apps and tips to help you overcome the language barrier.

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In today's globalised world, English has become the language of international communication, and has played an increasingly important role in driving China's economic growth and social development. For emerging economies like China, which is playing a growing role in world affairs, the English language is of special significance. Good English proficiency opens doors to greater opportunities and strengthens China's overall international competitiveness.

"Foreign language learning is not simply about learning a second language," said Shi Minghui, a former staff member at the Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Toronto and part of China's first generation of English learners after its reform and opening up.

"Ultimately, it is also about learning a fresh pattern of thinking. It is a way for you to discover an entirely new world. You can get a deeper understanding of the nation, the culture and the people by learning the language. English is a powerful tool for you to connect to the outside world."

China and its people understand the critical role the English language plays in being competitive on the global stage, as well as on a personal level.

Coming a long way

English language education in China has come a long way over the past four decades.

1978 was a historic year for the field, as it was made one of the test subjects in China's national college entrance exam. The language has become increasingly important ever since.

In the late 1980s, the College English Test Band 4 and Band 6 were initiated, while the 1990s saw a large number of Chinese students flocking to take tests such as the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) as well as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).

During the 2000s, private language education brand New Oriental became an industry giant, indicating the growing popularity of English and the massive market for English language education in China.

"China has the biggest English education market in the world," said Zou Yimin, a former staff member at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and founding editor of China's English newspaper China Daily, who became engaged in English language education after retirement.

"Although Chinese people are proud of their own culture and language, they are generally willing to learn about Western cultures and languages."

Starting young

English is a compulsory subject in China's standard national curriculum. Many Chinese students begin learning English at an early age, some even in kindergarten. In general, they receive their first English lessons in the third grade in primary school.

There are estimated to be around 400 million Chinese people learning English, larger than the entire population of the United States. In 2018, the number of TOEFL test takers reached 300,000, ranking first in the world, according to a China.org.cn article on December 28, 2019.

"Chinese students are getting younger, and preschoolers are one of the biggest submarkets for English language education," said Zou.

Many English education chain brands are designed specifically to cater to Chinese children.

While adults find it hard to see clear progress in a short period of time and are often too tired to learn English after work, children do not have these problems. Furthermore, parents are willing to invest a great deal in their offspring's language education and also to supervise them along the way. Chinese parents are willing to pay twice the price for a foreign face to teach their kids than for a seasoned Chinese teacher.

There has also been a clear increase in China's public school international programs that offer English-language AP, IB, and A-Level tracks for Chinese students hoping for overseas education, making TOEFL, IELTS, SAT, GRE and ACT a big submarket.

"A large number of quality native-speaking English teachers are needed in China," said Zou.

Due to this trend, many expats in China are shifting to language tutoring positions, and thousands of foreigners have left their home countries to come to China in search of career opportunities.

With a huge population base, enthusiasm for the English language and decent economic growth, China's English education market will remain the largest in the world and continue to expand.

China's vast English language education market is also a positive contributor to the global economy, creating more job opportunities for people in the English-speaking world while promoting mutual understanding, friendship and cultural exchanges between the Chinese people and those in the English-speaking community.

Remaining problems

Although English language education in China has developed considerably and a large number of Chinese people's English proficiency has improved greatly over the past decades, the English language education industry in China still faces some challenges.

For example, as the market grows and the number of native-speaking English tutors increases, it is getting harder to monitor their quality. Tutors vary in their capabilities and experience. The good and the bad are intermingled. A standard qualification or requirement for English tutors is lacking.

Moreover, as there are many different English testing systems in China, the syllabus is not consistent. Major English testing systems in China include the Public English Test System, College English Test, Test for English Majors, Business English Certificate and English exam for promotion. There is no national benchmark to evaluate the test takers' performance against uniform standards.

Meanwhile, Chinese policymakers have taken measures to address some of the thorny issues plaguing the English language education industry.

For instance, in December 2019, China's Standards of English Language Ability (CSE) was successfully linked to the TOEFL iBT. This arrangement indicates China's ambition to innovate its English language education system, and is designed to enhance the opening and development of English language education in China.

English proficiency has improved substantially in China since the country's reform and opening up over 40 years ago, but more efforts are still needed in the field if China expects to keep pace with the international community, thus creating more opportunities for native-speaking English tutors.

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English education in China: An evolutionary perspective - People's Daily Online

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In today's globalised world, English has become the language of international communication, and has played an increasingly important role in driving China's economic growth and social development. For emerging economies like China, which is playing a growing role in world affairs, the English language is of special significance.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15471753

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A new play is bringing to light what is lost in translation between residents of China and the English-speaking world. Damian Fowler finds out just how art imitates life.

Mandarin has arrived on the Broadway stage thanks to a new play called Chinglish, which explores the communication gap between the English-speaking world and China. It is a bilingual play, written in a mix of English and Mandarin, surely a first in the history of Broadway.

Written by the playwright David Henry Hwang, Chinglish is a comedy with a ripped-from-the-headlines theme. It tells the story of a struggling American businessman who finds himself in a provincial city in China, trying to win a contract to make signs for public buildings.

The play explores the language barrier that separates the businessman from his Chinese counterparts who can make or break the deal.

Hwang, a Chinese-American who does not speak Chinese, felt inspired to write the play after his own business trips to China.

"I've been going to China a fair amount over the last five or six years, mostly because China has become interested in Broadway musicals and I happen to be the only nominally Chinese who's ever written a Broadway show," says Hwang, referring to his play M Butterfly, which won him a Tony Award in 1988.

In China he could not help but notice the "absurdly translated signs" of Chinese into English - otherwise known as Chinglish.

Sometimes even if you're speaking the words literally you may as well be speaking a different language because some of the underlying cultural assumptions are so different
David Hwang, Playwright

Naively literal, the signs garble English into hilariously strange phrases: one, outside a bathroom for disabled people read as "Deformed Man's Toilet".

Other examples were equally baffling:

False Alarm! became The Siren Lies!

Slippery When Wet! was Be Mindful of the Juicy Surfaces!

Don't Feed the Birds! now read The Fowl Cannot Eat!

But the miscommunication between cultures runs deeper than words, says Mr Hwang.

"Chinglish is about attempts to communicate across cultures and the barriers that separate us, and the most superficial of those is language.

"But then sometimes even if you're speaking the words literally you may as well be speaking a different language because some of the underlying cultural assumptions are so different."

Admiration and anxiety

Of the seven people in the cast, six are bilingual, either Chinese or Chinese-American actors.

Actress Jennifer Lim plays Xi Yan, a fierce local official who holds the keys to the American's deal. For her, Chinglish is a truly cross-cultural play.

"Growing up I found myself in numerous situations where I've had to translate for relatives," says Lim, who was born in Hong Kong and then educated in Britain and the United States.

"If you speak the Chinese language the Chinglish makes a lot of sense!"

British actor Stephen Pucci, who speaks both English and Mandarin, plays a shady British expat who tries to broker the deal. Pucci has watched the rise of China as a global power with fascination, and admires the play's topical themes.

"I think it's definitely going to tap into something and encourage mutual awareness and understanding," he says. "Whether that understanding will be completely and wholly mutual we will see."

Chinglish opens at a moment in history when two important world powers, the US and China, are observing each other warily - there is admiration and anxiety on both sides.

"There are expansive differences between Chinese and American culture," says Leigh Silverman, the director of Chinglish. "It's essential that we figure out how to contend with each other and I think that's a part of what the play is exploring."

Last year, Silverman traveled with Hwang and the play's producers to Guizhou, a city of four million in south-western China, where the play is set. They were chaperoned by husband-and-wife cultural advisers, Joanna Lee and Ken Smith, who set up business meetings, dinner dates and tours for the creative team.

In addition, the duo helped find original props for the play to make it as authentic as possible. For example, they brought in the framed calligraphy which adorns the stage - including a banner featured in a restaurant scene reading: "Good eating and drinking means good morals."

Cultural blunders

Mr Smith and Ms Lee run Museworks, a consultancy connecting performing arts professionals between America, Europe and Asia. They understand the complications of doing business in China and have saved many a business professional from making cultural blunders.

"It is true that you're finding American businessman, British businessman really in the middle of nowhere in China, in the middle of nowhere in India," says Ms Lee.

"How do they navigate? How do they find their hotel room, get the support on the ground to get their deal done?"

One of the most important principles to understand when doing business in China is the concept of "guanxi" - pronounced "gwanshee" - which refers to the system of social networks and influential relationships that can facilitate business and other dealings.

"When you talk about guanxi in business it really talks about people you know in advance who have the same goals, same ideals and same way of working as you," says Mr Smith.

Guanxi even supersedes the significance of the business contract in China, according to the pair.

So, a Westerner doing business in China should expect to spend a lot of time wining and dining their Chinese counterparts to get the deal done. "Once one deal comes through and it's successful, people tend to stick together. The guanxi continues and strengthens," says Ms Lee.

In this regard Chinglish and its take on contemporary China is very much of the moment.

That does not mean it is without risk. After all, "Penetration will be dealt with painfully" can really mean "Trespassers will be prosecuted".

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A new play is bringing to light what is lost in translation between residents of China and the English-speaking world. Damian Fowler finds out just how art imitates life. Mandarin has arrived on the Broadway stage thanks to a new play called Chinglish, which explores the communication gap between the English-speaking world and China.

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Chinglish is slang for spoken or written English language that is either influenced by a Chinese language, or is poorly translated. In Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong and Guangxi, the term "Chinglish" refers mainly to Cantonese-influenced English. This term is commonly applied to ungrammatical or nonsensical English in Chinese contexts, and may have pejorative or deprecating connotations. Other terms used to describe the phenomenon include "Chinese English", "China English", " Engrish" and "Sinicized English". The degree to which a Chinese variety of English exists or can be considered legitimate is still up for debate.

The English word Chinglish is a portmanteau of Chinese and English. The Chinese equivalent is Zhōngshì Yīngyǔ ( simplified Chinese: 中式英语; traditional Chinese: 中式英語; 'Chinese-style English').

Chinglish can be compared with other interlanguage varieties of English, such as Britalian (from Italian), Czenglish (from Czech), Denglisch (German), Dunglish ( Dutch), Franglais (French), Greeklish (Greek), Manglish (Malaysia), Runglish (Russian), Spanglish (Spanish), Swenglish (Swedish), Hunglish (Hungarian), Hebglish (Hebrew), Engrish (Japanese), Hinglish ( Hindi), Konglish (Korean), Taglish ( Tagalog), Bislish ( Visayan), Singlish (in Singapore), Ponglish (Polish) and Tinglish ( Thai).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun and adjective.

Chinglish, n. and a. colloq. (freq. depreciative). Brit. /ˈtʃɪŋglɪʃ/, U.S. /ˈtʃɪŋ(g)lɪʃ/. Forms: 19- Chinglish, 19- Chenglish [rare]. [Blend of Chinese n. and English n. Compare earlier Japlish n., Spanglish n. Compare also Hinglish n.2, Singlish n.2]

A. n. A mixture of Chinese and English; esp. a variety of English used by speakers of Chinese or in a bilingual Chinese and English context, typically incorporating some Chinese vocabulary or constructions, or English terms specific to a Chinese context. Also: the vocabulary of, or an individual word from, such a variety. Cf. Singlish n.2

B adj. Of or relating to Chinglish; expressed in Chinglish.

This dictionary cites the earliest recorded usage of Chinglish (noted as a jocular term) in 1957 and of Chinese English in 1857. However, Chinglish has been found to date from as early as 1936, making it one of the earliest portmanteau words for a hybrid variety of English. Other colloquial portmanteau words for Chinese English include: Chenglish (recorded from 1979), Chinlish (1996), Chinenglish (1997), Changlish (2000) and Chinelish (2006).

Chinglish commonly refers to a mixture of English with Modern Standard Mandarin, but it occasionally refers to mixtures with Cantonese, Shanghainese and Taiwanese Hokkien.

Chinglish contrasts with some related terms. Chinese Pidgin English was a lingua franca that originated in the 17th century. Zhonglish, a term for Chinese influenced by English, is a portmanteau of Zhōngwén (; 'Chinese language') and "English".

Some peculiar Chinese English cannot be labeled Chinglish because it is grammatically correct, and Victor Mair calls this emerging dialect "Xinhua English or New China News English", based on the Xinhua News Agency. Take for instance, this headline: "China lodges solemn representation over Japan's permission for Rebiya Kadeer's visit". This unusual English phrase literally translates the original Chinese tíchū yánzhèng jiāoshè (提出嚴正交涉; 'lodge solemn representation'), combining tíchū "put forward; raise; pose bring up", yánzhèng "serious; stern; unyielding; solemn", and jiāoshè "mutual relations; negotiation; representation". "Pure Chinese" is an odd English locution in a Web advertisement: "/ CONFUCIUS INSTITUTE/ Teach you pure Chinese." This Kǒngzǐ Xuéyuàn () is Chinese for the Confucius Institute, but Mair notes that "pure Chinese" curiously implies "impure Chinese".

One author divides Chinglish into "instrumental" and "ornamental" categories. "Instrumental Chinglish is actually intended to convey information to English speakers. Ornamental Chinglish is born of the fact that English is the lingua franca of coolness. Meaning aside, any combination of roman letters elevates a commodity - khaki pants, toilet paper, potato chips - to a higher plane of chic by suggesting that the product is geared toward an international audience."

English first arrived in China in 1637, when British traders reached Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou (Canton). In the 17th century, Chinese Pidgin English originated as a lingua franca for trade between British people and mostly Cantonese-speaking Chinese people. This proto-Chinglish term " pidgin" originated as a Chinese mispronunciation of the English word " business". Following the First and Second Opium War between 1839-1842, Pidgin English spread north to Shanghai and other treaty ports. Pidgin usage began to decline in the late 19th century when Chinese and missionary schools began teaching Standard English. In 1982, the People's Republic of China made English the main foreign language in education. Current estimates for the number of English learners in China range from 300 to 500 million.

Chinglish may have influenced some English expressions that are " calques" or "loan translations" from Chinese Pidgin English, for instance, " lose face" derives from diūliǎn ; 'lose face; be humiliated' Some sources claim " long time no see" is a Chinglish calque from hǎojiǔbújiàn ; 'long time no see'. More reliable references note this jocular American English phrase "used as a greeting after prolonged separation" was first recorded in 1900 for a Native American's speech, and thus more likely derives from American Indian Pidgin English.

Chinese officials carried out campaigns to reduce Chinglish in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and the Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

Soon after Beijing was awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics in 2001, the Beijing Tourism Bureau established a tipster hotline for Chinglish errors on signs, such as emergency exits at the Beijing Capital International Airport reading "No entry on peacetime". In 2007, the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program (BSFLP) reported they had, "worked out 4,624 pieces of standard English translations to substitute the Chinglish ones on signs around the city", for instance, "Be careful, road slippery" instead of "To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty." BSFLP chairperson Chen Lin said, "We want everything to be correct. Grammar, words, culture, everything. Beijing will have thousands of visitors coming. We don't want anyone laughing at us." Reporting from Beijing, Ben Macintyre lamented the loss of signs like "Show Mercy to the Slender Grass" because, "many of the best examples of Chinglish are delightful, reflecting the inventiveness that results when two such different languages collide". The Global Language Monitor doubted that Beijing's attempt to eradicate Chinglish could succeed, noting that "attempting to map a precise ideogram to any particular word in the million-word English lexicon is a nearly impossible task", and pointing out that the Games' official website contained the phrase "we share the charm and joy of the Olympic Games" (using "charm" as a transitive verb).

In Shanghai, for Expo 2010, a similar effort was made to replace Chinglish signs. A The New York Times article by Andrew Jacobs reported on accomplishments by the Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use. "Fortified by an army of 600 volunteers and a politburo of adroit English speakers, the commission has fixed more than 10,000 public signs (farewell "Teliot" and "urine district"), rewritten English-language historical placards and helped hundreds of restaurants recast offerings." James Fallows attributed many Shanghai Chinglish errors to "rote reliance on dictionaries or translation software", citing a bilingual sign reading " Translate server error" ( cāntīng means "dining room; restaurant"). While conceding that "there's something undeniably Colonel Blimp-ish in making fun of the locals for their flawed command of your own mother tongue", Fallows observed a Shanghai museum with "Three Georges Exhibit" banners advertising a Three Gorges Dam exhibit, and wrote, "it truly is bizarre that so many organizations in China are willing to chisel English translations into stone, paint them on signs, print them on business cards, and expose them permanently to the world without making any effort to check whether they are right." On a Chinese airplane, Fallows was given a wet wipe labeled "Wet turban needless wash", translating miǎn xǐ shī jīn (免洗湿巾; 'wash-free moist towel'). Shanghai's Luwan District published a controversial "Bilingual Instruction of Luwan District for Expo" phrasebook with English terms and Chinese characters approximating pronunciation: "Good morning! ()" [pronounced gǔ dé māo níng] (which could be literally translated as "ancient cat tranquility") and "I'm sorry ()" [ ài me saō ruì] (which is nonsensical).

Chinglish is pervasive in present-day China "on public notices in parks and at tourist sites, on shop names and in their slogans, in product advertisements and on packages, in hotel names and literature, in restaurant names and on menus, at airports, railway stations and in taxis, on street and highway signs - even in official tourist literature."

The Global Language Monitor predicts Chinglish will thrive, and estimates that roughly 20 percent of new English words derive from Chinglish, for instance, shanzhai (山寨; 'mountain stronghold; mountain village') meaning " counterfeit consumer goods; things done in parody" - Huang Youyi, president of the China Internet Information Center, predicts that linguistic purism could be damaged by popular Chinese words of English origin (such as and ). "If we do not pay attention and we do not take measures to stop Chinese mingling with English, Chinese will no longer be a pure language in a couple of years."

Specifying Chinglish to mean "Chinese words literally translated into English", an experiment in linguistic clarity conducted by Han and Ginsberg (2001) found that mathematical terms are more readily understandable in Chinglish than English. English words for mathematics typically have Greek and Latin roots, while corresponding Chinese words are usually translations of neologisms from Western languages; thus quadrilateral (from Latin quadri- "four" and latus "sided") is generally less informative than Chinese sìbiānxíng 四边形; 'four-side-shape'). For example, compare the semantic clarity of English axiom, Chinese gōnglǐ , and Chinglish (literal translation) "universal-principle"; median, zhōngshù , and "centre-number"; or trapezoid, tīxíng , and "ladder-figure". The study involved three groups of mathematics teachers who rated the clarity of 71 common mathematical terms. Group 1 with native speakers of Chinese judged 61% of the Chinese terms as clear; Group 2 with native speakers of English judged 45% of the English terms as clear. Group 3 with English-speaking teachers (both native and nonnative speakers) judged the comparative clarity of English and Chinglish word pairs: more clear for 42.3% of the Chinglish and 5.6% of the English, equally clear for 25.4% of the Chinglish-English pairs, and neither clear for 19.7%.

In 2017, the Government of the People's Republic of China introduced the national standard for its English translations to replace Chinglish. This took effect on 1 December of that year.

Chinglish is the combination of the Chinese culture and the English language. China English has linguistic characteristics that are different from the normative English in all linguistic levels, including phonology, lexicon, syntax, and discourse.

At the phonological level, Chinglish does not differentiate between various vowel qualities because they don't exist in Chinese. As a result, there is no contrast between the two sounds for Chinglish speakers. For example, 'cheap' and 'chip' would be the same pronunciation. Another phonological feature is that speakers are unaware of the "graduation" of words which are said in different tones depending on the context. The word 'for' is stressed and said differently in the phrases "what is it for?" and "this is for you." To a Chinglish speaker, the two are the same. Chinglish speakers use Chinese phonological units to speak English, and retain the syllable timing of Chinese in place of the stress timing of English which together gives them a notable accent.

At the lexical level, China English manifests itself through many ways such as transliteration and loan translations. Transliteration has brought many interesting words and expressions from the Chinese language into English. Speakers are able to merge the two because of pinyin, a Latin alphabet used to write Chinese. In loan translations, Chinese words have been translated directly into English. This phenomenon can be found in a lot of compound words like red bean, bean curd, and teacup. The other way that loan translations are made is when speakers translate Chinese terms into English. These words come from the Chinese culture and are ideas, thoughts, or expressions that do not exist in English. For example, 'spring rolls' would otherwise not have meaning in English if not for Chinglish speakers making it a loan translation to describe the food. In addition, speakers use subordinate conjunctions differently and also exhibit copula absence in their speech. Examples include "Because I am ill, so I can't go to school" and "The dress beautiful."

As Chinese grammar does not distinguish between definite and indefinite articles, Chinese speakers struggle with when to use or not use the English definite article "the".

At the syntactic level, Chinese thinking has influenced Chinglish speakers to utilize a different sequence and structure to make sentences. For English speakers, a common sequence is subject → predicate → object → adverbial ("John entered the room quietly"). On the other hand, the Chinese sequence is subject → adverbial → predicate → object ("Lijing quiet room enter"). Chinese speakers tend to leave the most important information (the topic) at the back of the sentence, while English speakers present it at the start.

Linguists and language teachers employ error analysis to fathom Chinglish. Liu et al. list four characteristic features of Chinglish mistranslations,

Cultural meanings. The English idiom "work like a horse" means "work hard", but in China horses are rarely used as draft animals and the equivalent Chinese expression uses niú "Cattle".

Problems of direct translation. Some Chinglish menus translate dòufu as "bean curd", which "sounds very unappetizing" to English speakers, instead of "tofu".

Wordiness. Unnecessary words and convoluted sentences are hallmarks of Chinglish translation. For example, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced, "CAAC has decided to start the business of advance booking and ticketing", which could simply say "CAAC now accepts advance booking and ticketing."

Wrong word order. A host in Shenyang toasted a group of foreign investors with "Up your bottoms!" instead of "Bottoms up!"

Chinglish reflects the influence of Chinese syntax and grammar. For instance, Chinese verbs are not necessarily conjugated and there is no equivalent article for English "the", both of which can create awkward translations.

Chinglish has various causes, most commonly erroneous Chinese dictionaries, translation software, and incorrect English as a foreign language textbooks. Other causes include misspelling, mediocre English-language teaching, sloppy translation, and reliance on outdated translation technology. Liu, Feather and Qian warn that

today's English-language publishers and teachers in China are passing on obsolete translations and incorrect rules of language to students. In turn, Chinglish gets duplicated across society, particularly now during today's period of rapid opening to the outside world and the widespread use of English. The resultant flood of Chinglish will perpetuate unless it is corrected now.

Common causes include:

Lack of inclusion of native English speakers in the translation or editing process

Word-for-word dictionary translation: rigidly substituting Chinese words with English ones from dictionaries, without considering the impact of polysemy

Use of machine translation without post-editing

Competently translated text which has been subsequently edited by non-native speakers

Linguistic differences and mother tongue interference

Different thinking patterns and culture

Outdated Chinese-English dictionaries and textbook-style English

Mediocre English-language teaching and lack of English-language environment

Some words are generally confused by most Chinglish speakers, for example "emergent" instead of "emergency" or "urgent", because of incorrect entries in dictionaries.

In Chinglish, "I know" is generally used instead of the term "I see", when used to tell others that you understand what they said.

"See", "watch", "read", "look", all refer to "" ( kàn) in Chinese. For example, "" means "to see a film" or "to watch movie", "" means "to read a book", "" means "to look at me". Because of that, Chinglish speakers use "look" instead of "see", "watch", or "read". The same phenomena can be found in the use of "speak", "say", and "talk" - . For Chinglish speakers, the expression "Can you say Chinese?" means "Do you speak Chinese?"[citation needed ] This is likely taken from the Chinese phrase, "".

Another misuse of vocabulary is "to turn on/off" and "open/close". Chinese speakers use "" ( guān) to refer to turning off things like electrical appliances or to close a door or window. Accordingly, a Chinglish speaker would say "close the light" instead of "turn off the light". In the same way, they would say "open the TV" instead of "turn on the TV".

Collections of Chinglish are found on numerous websites (see below) and books. Owing to the ubiquity of Chinglish mistakes throughout the Sinophone world, the following examples will exclude common misspellings (e.g., "energetically Englsih-friendly environment") and typographical errors (a bilingual bus sign reading " To unknow"; wǎng means "to; toward" and bùzhīdào "don't know") that can occur anywhere in the English-speaking world.

Add oil. A commonly used Chinglish expression for 加油, an encouragement and supporting expression.

Slip carefully (sometimes Carefully slip and fall down). A common mistranslation of "Caution. Wet floor." , means "floor" or as a suffix to an adverb when pronounced as dì or de, respectively. The phrase can be transliterated as "caution, the floor (is) wet" or "(to) carefully slip".

To take notice of safe: The slippery are very crafty. A comparable sign in a Beijing garage reads zhùyì ānquán pōdào lù huá (注意安全 坡道路滑; 'Exercise caution. The slope is slippery').

Workshop for concrete agitation appears on a sign in a Sichuan factory. jiǎobàn fáng (), which combines jiǎobàn meaning "stir; mix; agitate" and fáng "house; room", translates as "mixing room".

Spread to fuck the fruit is a Chinese supermarket sign mistranslation of sǎn gānguǒ (simplified Chinese: 散干果; traditional Chinese: 散乾果; 'loose dried fruits'). Victor Mair noted the fuck translation of machine translation software misinterpreting gān () was "fairly ubiquitous in China", and discovered this complicated Chinglish error resulted from 干果; gānguǒ (乾果; 'dried fruits/nuts') as 干果; 幹果; 'do/fuck fruits'). In written Chinese, sometimes a single simplified Chinese character is used for multiple traditional Chinese characters: gàn guǒ (干; lit. 'trunk; stem, intervene') is the simplified form of two words gān (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: Jinshan Ciba dictionary (2002 edition) and Jinshan Kuaiyi translation software systematically rendered every occurrence of as "fuck" (later editions corrected this error). Two comparable Chinglish mistranslations of The shrimp fucks the cabbage for gān (; 'dry; dried up; in vain') and gàn (; 'trunk; main body; do; work; (vulgar) fuck'). Mair's research revealed that the popular Chinese-English 虾干炒白菜; 蝦乾炒白菜; 'stir-fried dried shrimp with gān "dry" as Chinese cabbage'), and gàn "do; fuck" are: fuck the empress mistakes gàn hòu (Xiāgān chǎo báicài (干后; 幹后; 'do the empress') for 干后; 乾後; 'after drying'), with 后; lit. 'queen; empress') as the Simplified form of gānhòu (hòu (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: hòu (; 'after').

Please steek gently appears on a Taipei government building door. This form of Chinglish uses obscure English terms, namely, Scottish English steek "enclose; close; shut" instead of the common word.

Bumf Box for shǒuzhǐ xiāng (手紙箱; 'toilet paper box/case'), employs the British English word bumf, originally a shortened form of bumfodder meaning "toilet paper", now used to mean "useless documents".

Braised enterovirus in Clay Pot appears on a Chinese menu for gānguō féicháng (干鍋肥腸; 'dry pot fatty intestine'), which is a stuffed sausage popular in Sichuanese-Hunanese cuisine. This example occurred following the Enterovirus 71 epidemic in China, and mistranslates féicháng (肥腸; 'pig's large intestines [used as food]') as 腸[道]病毒; 'intestinal virus').cháng[dào] bìngdú (

Fried enema on a menu mistranslates zhá guàn cháng (炸灌腸; 'fried sausage [with flour stuffed into hog casings]'). The Jinshan Ciba dictionary confused the cooking and medical meanings of guanchang "(make) a sausage; (give) an enema".

A weak 'pyridaben carbazole' sound is found on translated instructions for a photographic light, "Install the battery into the battery jar, when heard a weak 'pyridaben carbazole' sound the installation is completed." The original Chinese has an onomatopoetic term dādā kǎzuò (噠噠咔唑; 'click or tick') rendered into dāmǎnlíng (噠蟎靈; 'pyridaben') and 咔唑; 'kǎzuò (carbazole').

4 Uygur theater is printed on the bilingual instructions for a Chinese 4-D film about dinosaurs. The Chinese term sìwéi (四維; '4 dimensions') uses wéi "tie up; maintain, uphold; estimate" that commonly transcribes foreign names such as wéiwú'ěr (維吾爾; 'Uyghur').

Exterminate Capitalism Lobster Package was the Chinglish rendering of tāotiè lóngxiā cān (饕餮龍蝦餐; 'gourmand lobster meal') on a menu mentioned by The New York Times. Victor Mair analyzed the linguistic impossibility of rendering () "a mythical beast; glutton; greedy person" as "exterminate capitalism" and concluded somebody "mischievously provided an absurd translation, perhaps with the intention of poking fun at the Chinese Communist system which has given rise to such luxurious and fancy dining practices as reflected in pretentious menus of this sort."

Do not want is a mistranslation, albeit a substantially intelligible one (e.g., "[I] do not want [what is happening to happen]") of "Nooooo-!" exclaimed by Darth Vader in a bootleg version of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, a phrase which has since become an internet meme. A bootleg copy of the film entitled "Star War - The third gathers: Backstroke of the West" was bought in China, and featured erroneous English subtitles that were machine translated back from a Chinese translation of the original English, i.e. a re-translation, which was posted online due to its humorous use of poor English. Having gone viral, the phrase has spread as a meme used on messageboards online. The mistranslation is an example of translation decay following an English translation to Chinese, which is then re-translated back into English; the exclamation "no" would be correctly translated as 不要 buyao in Chinese, however since 要 yao can also mean "want", and 不 bu is used as a negation particle, 不要 can also be translated as "don't want" or "do not want". As an example, the phrase 我不要去 correctly translates to "I (don't/do not) want to go", however the discussion 「你要不要吃飯？」／「不要。」 translates to "Do you want to eat?"/"No." as well. Other humorous mistranslations from this movie include "They're all over me" as "He is in my behind", "The Jedi Council" as "The Presbyterian Church", and the notorious phrase "May the force be with you" as "The wish power are together with you".

Don't stampede is featured on signs in lavatories to inform users that using a sitting toilet like a squatting toilet is prohibited.

Mustard Silk is a mistranslation of "shredded pickled vegetables", (literally, "pickled mustard shred.") The product was employed by China Eastern Airlines.

Civilization tour is found on signs on boats on the West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang as a mistranslation for "文明旅游" (wénmíng lǚyóu, tour civilizedly).

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Chinglish is slang for spoken or written English language that is either influenced by a Chinese language, or is poorly translated. In Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong and Guangxi, the term "Chinglish" refers mainly to Cantonese-influenced English. This term is commonly applied to ungrammatical or nonsensical English in Chinese contexts, and may have pejorative or deprecating connotations.

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Clive - 11-7/7 - English, Chinglish or China English?

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Clive - 11-7/7 - English, Chinglish or China English?

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Introduction

Roughly 90,000 taxi drivers in Beijing learned English in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games (Beijing 2008) of some 600,000 total residents of the city that have jumped on the English bandwagon in the past few years ( People's Daily, 2001). China is a country of nearly a billion and a half people, most of whom now begin learning English at the age of ten (Dong, Reference Dong2005: 11). A simple Google search for 'English in China' yields more than 36,000,000 results! It cannot be argued that English is unpopular in the Middle Kingdom. With so many learners there, it stands to reason that a variety of English peculiar to China would eventually develop, and there is much evidence to suggest that it has already begun.

Prior to 1978, China was largely cut off from international contact, but the death of Mao Zedong two years earlier allowed for changes within the country's policy structure. From then on, a gradual modernisation programme was instituted that allowed for the development of a more open market economy. Thus, the English Boom was born, and, nowadays, hundreds of thousands of ESL teachers flock to China each year for annual contracts teaching at all levels, from primary upwards. The roles of English extend to all ends of the Chinese social spectrum: mass media to tourism, sport to government. This English Boom has spurred the development of localised varieties, as well as the so-called Chinglish phenomenon. Tourists and foreigners in China often make a habit out of photographing and collecting the 'funny English' found on signs around the country. Even Wikipedia has a lengthy article on the subject of Chinglish, with examples and photographs. YouTube is chock full of home-made videos on the subject, and every westerner in China wants to be an expert on the subject. Websites like Engrish ( 2006) and The Chinglish Files ( 2008) allow visitors to submit their own personal photos of 'Chinglished' signs, funny menus, or unusual product slogans.

All of these factors raise questions about the legitimacy of a localised variety of English that is unique to China. Does such a variety exist? Where do funny, nonsensical mistakes on signage meet valid local developing forms of English? What are Chinglish, Chinese English, and China English and are there any differences between them?

Chinglish, Chinese English, and China English

Based on the research of several noted linguists, including Ge Chuangui ( Reference Ge1983) and Li Wenzhong (1993), Wei Yun and Fei Jia ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) identify three stages in the development of the English that is spoken in China: Chinese Pidgin English (CPE), Chinglish as an interlanguage, and Chinese/China English (CE) as a developing world variety. While these categories hold much value, the grouping of Chinese and China English together is possibly too broad, and does not take into consideration the existence of entirely nonsensical forms of English that are the result of poor translations. Leaving the largely historical issue of Chinese Pidgin English aside, in this essay I will argue that Chinglish is not, in fact, an interlanguage, but a nonsensical, problematic form of English that is the result of poor translation, misspelling, and errors. Furthermore, I will separate and expand the categories of Chinese English and China English, suggesting that the former is an interlanguage that is used on a learner's path toward fluency and the latter is a developing world variety of English.

In discussing any non-native variety of English, it is first useful to examine Kachru's three circles of English (see Crystal, Reference Crystal1997). With the Inner Circle consisting of the varieties generally considered to be 'native' (e.g. UK or American English) and the Outer Circle comprising developed international varieties often found in former English colonies (e.g. India or Singapore), the outermost Expanding Circle will be the concern of this essay. China English, as I shall define it below, falls into this Expanding Circle category, along with Russia and other large geographical areas, making it the potentially largest group of English speakers on earth. Here, we can also talk about the 'nativisation' of a variety - how far along the variety is on its path to becoming truly localised. Butler (in Kirkpatrick & Xu, Reference Kirkpatrick and Xu2002) sets out five criteria for nativisation, including a) standard and unique pronunciation, b) a lexicon that expresses local ideas, c) history in the speech community, d) a written literature and e) a set of reference works. I follow Kirkpatrick & Xu's ( ibid.) assessment that China English falls into the class of a developing variety rather than an established variety, particularly because China English has, until now, only fulfilled the first three of Butler's criteria. Thus, for the purposes of this essay, China English (as it will be defined below) will be considered as a developing variety in Kachru's Expanding Circle. Several varieties of English have already developed among communities of Chinese speakers in other parts of the world, including Singapore English, Hong Kong English, and Malaysian English. This essay will be limited to the context of Mainland China English only and will not be concerned with the other varieties of Chinese-based English.

Defining Chinglish

As previously stated, Wei & Fei ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) define Chinglish as an interlanguage, usually manifested as Chinese-style syntax with English words, Chinese phonological elements in pronunciation or grammatical variations that attempt to follow Standard English rules but miss the mark (p. 43). As will be discussed later in this essay, I assert that these criteria should instead be used to define Chinese English as an interlanguage. Chinglish, then, is a nonsensical form of language, identifiable as an attempt at English, but usually produced by deficient translation devices or speakers/writers with a low skill level (though it may not always be possible to tell which of the two has caused any particular instance of Chinglish). By definition, then, the occurrence of Chinglish is generally confined to written forms where mistakes of expression or translation are made.

Examples of Chinglish

Figure 1 below is an easily definable example of Chinglish as a nonsensical, erroneous form of language. This sign was photographed at the top of a mountain path climb in rural Zhejiang province.

The phrase 回程道 ( huíchéng dào) can be glossed as 'return journey way' and translated as 'return route' or 'way back', which makes sense in the light of the sign's positional context, indicating the way back down the mountain. However, the obviously flawed 'English' translation listed below the Chinese could hardly be termed anything but nonsensical. The only part of the translation that appears to correlate with the actual Chinese meaning is 'back'; however, with the preceding 'rack' and the suffixed 't' added on, the word makes no sense.

Figure 2, taken near the Da Zha Lan Shopping Alley in Beijing's hutong district, may also be regarded as an example of Chinglish.

Here, the term 智力玩具 ( zhìlì wánjù) is translated as 'mental toy', while a more appropriate translation would be 'intellectual toy'. The concept of an 'intellectual toy' might arguably be a lexical item exclusive to China, as a Google search of the phrase in English yields only Chinese-based toy manufacturers (compared with 'educational toy' in other varieties of English). Thus, the term 'mental toy' might be classified as Chinglish because of its nonsensical nature and poor translation.

Figure 3 is a particularly interesting example of Chinglish signage, photographed at the same place as Figure 2, near Da Zha Lan Alley in Beijing.

The three characters 佛光阁 ( fó guāng gé) can be literally glossed as 'Buddha light shelf' and refer to a small Buddha-shaped lamp that is often manufactured and sold in areas of China frequently visited by tourists. This translation is an obvious case of Chinglish: 'Buddna' being a typo of Buddha, 'sheen' being a possible interpretation of 光, an adjective meaning shiny or lustrous, and 'cockloft' being a very antiquated British word for 'attic'. When translated through more sophisticated online software (Yellowbridge, 2008), 阁 receives hits as both 'shelf' and 'attic' which suggests that the phrase was translated via an out-of-date dictionary or software. Hence, this unintelligible phrase is a clear case of Chinglish as poor translation.

Defining Chinese English

Wei & Fei ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) group the terms Chinese English and China English together, suggesting that ' Chinese English has tended to be held in contempt by both native speakers and most Chinese' (p. 44), whereas China English is a more widely-accepted title for the developing variety of English that is now being spoken in China. Similarly, Hu ( Reference Hu and Chen2006) says that there is 'no clear distinction between the terms' Chinese English and Chinglish and describes them as being 'at the opposite ends of a continuum' (p. 231). I propose that it is dangerous to group together these two forms of English, because there are clear differences between the interlanguage spoken by Chinese learners of English (what I term Chinese English) and the maturing cultural variety of English that is developing, outlined later in this paper as China English.

Aspects of Chinese English

If we take Richards et al.'s ( Reference Richards1992) definition of interlanguage, we can see that it is:

If we look at Chinese English as an interlanguage, the descriptive rules of English at work are obvious, though not always in a 'native-like' fashion. Often, Chinese English is the product of errors made by learners as they advance in fluency level. Chinese syntax or sentence structure with English words might be used, or at other times erroneous but intelligible uses of grammatical patterns (e.g. wrong past tenses, present progressive, etc), erroneous word choice, or the wrong application of rule structures. These forms of interlanguage do not constitute a new variety in and of themselves, but are usually still understandable to native speakers despite the errors. According to Wei and Fei, 'Individual learners, in using English, translate more or less from Chinese and tend to ignore the basic grammatical structure of English' (2003, p. 43). In this way, Chinese English as an interlanguage may not differ significantly from the interlanguages used by other learners of English around the world. Example A is an excerpt from a transliterated version of a speech given by one of the author's Chinese secondary school students:

Example A: Chinese English

The student first fails to transform 'happy' from its adjectival form to its nominal form, 'happiness'. Though this does not render the sentence unintelligible, it is the product of an inexperienced speaker who will presumably learn its standard pattern with more practice. Furthermore, this pattern would be common and particular to Chinese English because, in Mandarin, adjectival and nominal forms are often the same (as in this case, where 高兴 ( gāoxìng) means 'happy', 'happiness' and 'to be happy').

In the second sentence, the student literally translates an idiom from Mandarin using a combination of Chinese syntax and English words: 哪里有你 那里有高兴 ( năli yŏu nĭ, nàli yŏu gāoxìng), which can be glossed as: 'where have you, there have happy'. It should be noted that the student incorrectly translates a second 'where' which should actually have been 'there'. This is an easy error to make, as the words for 'there' and 'where' in Mandarin are homophonic except for their tones: 哪里 năli - 3rd tone = where; 那里 nàli - 4th tone = there. Example B, taken from a second student's speech, demonstrates improper word choice as a component of Chinese English.

Example B: Chinese English

In the first sentence, she uses the word 'work' (a verb) where the word 'job' (a noun) would be standard. Like gāoxìng in the previous example, here 'work' and 'job' are synonymous in the Mandarin word 工作 ( gōngzuò) which carries both the verbal and nominal meanings. In the second sentence, she says 'I want everyone can help me', where the standard pattern would be 'to' instead of 'can' in the use of the infinitive 'to help'. Here, she uses a Chinese verb construction where a lack of verb conjugation in Mandarin means that it is entirely possible to place two verbs next to one another in a sentence. In Standard English, however, only conjugated and infinitive verb forms may be used side-by-side. Furthermore, her choice of the word 'can' reflects the Mandarin use of the word 会 ( huì), which means both ability and permission to do something.

Figure 4 was photographed at a civic museum in Zhejiang Province. It shows a very clear example of misapplied grammatical rules.

The translator obviously meant 'No photographing' or 'No photography', but instead used the same conjugational pattern as in 'No smoking' (where the final 'e' is dropped from 'smoke' and the suffix 'ing' is added) and misapplied it to the word 'photo' rendering the phrase unintelligible. When viewed in context to its partner sign, this becomes an obvious case of interlanguage, where a learner is not yet fluent in the appropriate use of grammar patterns. It would be out of place to label this as China English because the example is an obvious result of misuse rather than a developing new trend in language function.

Figure 5 is a similar final example of Chinese English as an interlanguage.

In this case, the translator obviously meant 'recyclable' and 'non-recyclable' with the phrases 'can't reusing' and 'can reusing'. Two things have happened in this case. First examining the nature of the Mandarin structure, 不可回收 ( bù kĕ huìshōu) and 可回收 ( kĕ huìshōu) can be glossed as 'cannot recycle' and 'can recycle' (from left to right in the photo), making clear why the initial structure of 'can't' and 'can' was used. However, a second pattern has occurred in the employment of the present progressive form 'reusing'. While it is obvious that 'reuse' is a suitable synonym for 'recycle', it is impossible to explain why the present progressive verb form was chosen. Nonetheless, here again it is not a new developing pattern of English but simply a misapplied grammar structure that, presumably, would not occur if the translator was more experienced using English.

Again, these fundamental mistakes do not render the sentences entirely unintelligible to a native speaker, but they are obviously errors resulting from the speaker's lack of practice using English rather than new patterns developing in a China variety of English. Since the phrases are clear despite the misused patterns, they cannot be defined as Chinglish. As well, the patterns are not necessarily new developing forms of English particular to China, so they cannot be called China English, as will be described in the third section below. They fall into this intermediary category of an interlanguage - Chinese English.

Defining China English

The term China English has, by now, been well defined by linguists over the past 20 years. One of the most quoted writers on this particular topic is Li Wenzhong, whose definition has been used by dozens of succeeding researchers. Kirkpatrick and Xu ( Reference Kirkpatrick and Xu2002) quote Li's definition of China English:

China English is based on a standard English, expresses Chinese culture, has Chinese characteristics in lexis, sentence structure and discourse but does not show any L1 interference. (p. 269)

The meaning of 'L1 interference' here is the type of grammatical misuse we have seen occurring in Chinese English, defined in this essay as an interlanguage. So, Li distinguishes between Chinese English, with L1 interference, where the language learner uses certain aspects of her native language (L1) when trying to speak a second language (L2), and China English, which he terms a developing new variety with its own lexicon, structure, and discourse. According to Xu, as quoted in Poon ( Reference Poon2006), there are at least four major features of China English: varied pronunciation and accent, particular lexical items, an idiosyncratic syntax, and distinct discourse varieties (p. 24). Wei and Fei ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) also list several excellent examples of these four aspects of China English, including specific aspects of China English syntax and discourse.

Pronunciation and accent

Though a detailed analysis of the phonology of China English is outside the scope of this essay, a few examples will be provided here.

/θ/ → /s/ Speakers of China English often substitute /s/ where a Standard English speaker would use /θ/. This is because Mandarin has no sound equivalent to the English /θ/, an unvoiced dental fricative, so speakers choose the next closest linguistic component available to them, an unvoiced alveolar fricative, as a substitute. /ð/ → /z/ or /ð/ → /d/ Similarly, the voiced dental fricative /ð/ changes to voiced alveolars, which are the closest phonemes available in Mandarin. Finally, because Mandarin is a monosyllabic, tonal language, there is a tendency for China English speakers to use a very staccato style of speaking, where an additional /ə/ is sometimes added on to the end of a morpheme or lexical item to make it more readily pronounceable. For example, the Standard English /kæt/ may change to /kætə/ in China English. As well, the tonal nature of Mandarin results in China English speakers 'adding' tones to English words where they do not exist, or changing the stressing of syllables.

Lexical items

As Jian Yang ( Reference Yang2005) points out, 'borrowing has long been recognized as an important part of the nativization that English has undergone' (p. 425). To accurately talk about borrowings, it would be useful to define several terms, as there have been many arguments on the various expressions used regarding this subject. Though many definitions have been put forward, I will use Suzanne Romaine's (1995) definitions, as follows:

* loanblend - one part of a word is borrowed and the other belongs to the original language.

* loanshift - taking a word in the base language and extending its meaning so that it corresponds to that of a word in the other language.

* loan translation - rearranging words in the base language along a pattern provided by the other and thus creating a new meaning. (Romaine, Reference Romaine1995: 56-7)

Lexical innovations in China English mostly fall into one of these three categories, but to stay within scope here, I will only give some examples rather than provide lengthy discussions of how each example should be sorted according to the above categories.

In short, China English lexical items are words that can be easily recognised as English; however, they generally express ideas or things specific to Chinese culture and are therefore useless or even meaningless in the context of standard, native, or international Englishes. Distinctive examples of China English lexical items include such terms as autonomous region, colour wolf, dragon boat, little red cap, Mid-Autumn festival, one country two systems, red envelope, and special administrative region.

Although these words and phrases can easily be identified as English, their meaning is often inaccessible to English speakers outside China. For instance, the phrase colour wolf is a direct loan translation from Mandarin, roughly equivalent to 'sex maniac'. And, although a speaker of other varieties of English would easily be able to visualise a red envelope in its literal sense, within the Chinese cultural context, the phrase refers to a special monetary gift, often given at Chinese New Year or to exchange favours. So, these lexical items are very clearly Chinese in context and culture, and not fully comprehensible to users of English outside the Chinese context.

Syntax

Wei and Fei ( Reference Wei and Fei2003) provide a lengthy discussion of China English syntax with examples of six features of variation, including (i) word order differences, (ii) open head vs. open end, (iii) time sequence, (iv) compound and complex sentence structures, (v) special subjects and (vi) the use of the passive voice (pp. 44-5). Let us take as an example feature (ii), open head vs. open end, where, in China English, subordinate clauses are often put in front of main clauses. Example C is taken from a personal email to the author.

Example C: China English grammar (1)

As I am currently in China with an ABQ delegation doing projects of business, medical consulting, fashion-textile design, and Chinese investment to the US, I could not come myself.

In Standard written English, this might be phrased:

I could not come myself, as I am currently in China with an ABQ delegation doing projects [...]

following the pattern main clause + subordinate clause. Kirkpatrick and Xu ( Reference Kirkpatrick and Xu2002) point out that this phenomenon often occurs with 'because' as a forward pointing discourse marker at the beginning of a sentence. Example D shows this in another personal email.

Example D: China English grammar (2)

Because he can not reply you in time, I contact you directly. I hope my English won't let you down.

Though this may cause confusion for a native speaker for whom 'because' is a signifier that important information has already been transmitted, for China English speakers, 'because' is often placed first in a sentence in the Chinese language, and this structure is often transferred into English.

Discourse

Far less research has been done with regard to the discourse patterns of China English, although Kirkpatrick and Xu ( Reference Kirkpatrick and Xu2002) point out a striking feature of written discourse patterns in China English, where 'facework' plays an important role:

The first half of the letter is taken up with what Scollon and Scollon (1991) have called 'facework'. Then the writer introduces the reasons for a particular request and then, finally, makes the actual request. We could simplify the schema to: Salutation, Facework, Reason/Justification, Request, Sign off. (p. 274)

With this pattern in mind, let us examine Example E, a personal email to the author of this article:

Example E: Discourse features of China English

Salutation: Hello ...

Facework: I am [author] (I am Chinese), the colleague of [name] (our foreign advisor). Because he can not reply you in time, I contact you directly. I hope my English won't let you down.

Reason/Justification: It was a long time since my last mail. We are so glad to hear the news that you agree to write for us. Your experience and story is very valuable for our website and tourists. We are hoping to get your story as soon as possible. We will pay you due the time we got the stroy. [sic] So don't worry about that. We have been in business since 1998 and enjoy high reputation home and abroad. I appreciate your writing style and creative idea. It is a happy experience to write to you.

Request: So could you tell me how many stories do you have in hand or be going to write? What price do you charge for your story? When can you finish your story and send it or them to us?

Sign off: I am looking forward to your reply!

Best wishes,

Author

As we can see, this email clearly follows the pattern described in Kirkpatrick and Xu. First, the author introduces himself with a salutation. Next, he engages in facework, whereby he creates 'good face' by complimenting the recipient and noting his connection to her via a third party. Third, he shows his reason and justification for writing while still employing further facework in phrases like 'Your experience and story is very valuable.' Finally, he signs off by asking for a reply and sending best wishes. This type of discourse pattern is very particular to users of China English, especially in the Chinese cultural context where face represents a critical social concept. So, it makes sense that the breadth of the communication is taken up by discourse efforts toward positive facework and justification, whereas the same letter in Standard English would display the request with far less concern for them. China English is unique across the linguistic spectrum, from phonology to discourse. In the light of Butler's five criteria for nativisation, it is obviously still a developing variety, but the aspects shown above suggest that China English is on its way to becoming an established variety of English.

Conclusion

This essay has examined three types of English that exist in Mainland China, distinguishing particularly between Chinglish and Chinese English, which have been grouped together by previous linguists. Chinglish can be viewed as an erroneous form of language that is the result of poor translation, and it generally only exists in written form. Chinese English is an interlanguage used by Mandarin-speaking English learners in China. It is easily understood as being English by Inner Circle speakers, but it often contains so-called L1 interference, or Mandarin structural features. Misplaced or errantly used grammatical patterns are another characteristic of Chinese English. Finally, China English is a developing world variety of English. It has unique features including phonology, lexicon, syntax, and discourse patterns, and therefore it fulfils three out of Butler's five criteria toward becoming a nativised variety. As China develops socially and opens economically over the next decade, the use of English there will only be widened and further refined into an established Expanding Circle World English.

This Is China: A Guidebook for Teachers, Backpackers and Other Lunatics (Lulu, 2009). Email: megan.eaves@gmail.com

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English, Chinglish or China English? | English Today | Cambridge Core

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Roughly 90,000 taxi drivers in Beijing learned English in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games (Beijing 2008) of some 600,000 total residents of the city that have jumped on the English bandwagon in the past few years ( People's Daily, 2001).

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The terms Chinese English and China English are often used interchangeably, though some scholars draw distinctions between them.

The related term Chinglish, a blend of the words Chinese and English, tends to be used in a humorous or derogatory fashion to characterize English texts such as road signs and menus that have been translated literally and often imprecisely from the Chinese. Chinglish may also refer to the use of Chinese words in an English conversation or vice versa. Chinglish is sometimes characterized as an interlanguage.

In Global English (2015), Jennifer Jenkins concludes that "there are probably more Chinese speakers of English in the world than speakers of any other kind of English."

"With some 250 million Chinese people currently learning to speak English or already fluent, there will soon be more English speakers in China than in the entire British Commonwealth. . . .
"Since each Chinese ideogram can have many meanings and interpretations, translating Chinese ideas into English is, indeed, extremely difficult. Because of this, Chinese-English hybrid words [such as "No noising" for "Quiet, please," and "slippercrafty" for "treacherously icy road"] are often viewed with amusement by the rest of the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, this abundance of new words and phrases, unlikely as it may seem, is one of the prime drivers of the globalization of the English language."
(Paul J. J. Payack, A Million Words and Counting: How Global English Is Rewriting the World. Citadel, 2008)

"On a theoretical level, China English is distinguished systematically from Chinese English, Chinglish, Pidgin English, etc. China English is understood as a standardizing or standardized variety in use in China, which reflects Chinese cultural norms and concepts. Chinese English refers to varieties of English used by Chinese learners (see Kirkpatrick and Xu 2002). Hu (2004: 27) puts China English at one end of a continuum where lowly Pidgin English or Chinglish is at the other. China English is 'a language which is as good a communicative tool as standard English,' but one which has important Chinese characteristics."
(Hans-Georg Wolf, Focus on English. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2008)

Speaking both English and Chinese in one's sentences.
Example of a sentence in chinglish: "At K-mart, I buy hen duo clothes."
(A. Peckham, Mo' Urban Dictionary. Andrews McMeel, 2007)

"Fortified by an army of 600 volunteers and a politburo of adroit English speakers, the [Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use] has fixed more than 10,000 public signs (farewell 'Teliot' and 'urine district'), rewritten English-language historical placards and helped hundreds of restaurants recast offerings. . . .
"But while the war on mangled English may be considered a signature achievement of government officials, aficionados of what is known as Chinglish are wringing their hands in despair. . . .
"Oliver Lutz Radtke, a former German radio reporter who may well be the world's foremost authority on Chinglish, said he believed that China should embrace the fanciful melding of English and Chinese as the hallmark of a dynamic, living language. As he sees it, Chinglish is an endangered species that deserves preservation."
(Andrew Jacobs, "Shanghai Is Trying to Untangle the Mangled English of Chinglish." The New York Times, May 2, 2010)

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The terms Chinese English and China English are often used interchangeably, though some scholars draw distinctions between them. The related term Chinglish, a blend of the words Chinese and English, tends to be used in a humorous or derogatory fashion to characterize English texts such as road signs and menus that have been translated literally and often imprecisely from the Chinese.

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Rachel - Facts & Details About English in China

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Rachel - Facts & Details About English in China

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https://factsanddetails.com/china/cat4/sub16/item123.html

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Chinglish overview

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Chinglish is slang for spoken or written English language that is influenced by the Chinese language. In Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong and Guangxi, the term "Chinglish" refers mainly to Cantonese-influenced English. This term is commonly applied to ungrammatical or nonsensical English in Chinese contexts, and may have pejorative or deprecating connotations.

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Rachel - The History of English in China

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Rachel - The History of English in China

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https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=bridges_contemporary_connections