“I’m not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead–ahead of myself as well as you.” ― George Bernard Shaw As I’ve re-entered the job market in Asia, I’ve looked at returning to teaching English as a foreign language (EFL); it’s a job I’ve enjoyed at times in …
I’m leaving Vietnam for a stay in Taipei, where I can re-immerse myself in Mandarin and force myself to study the language more.
Sometimes it isn’t so easy to find bad translations in Japan, but I managed to find a little bit of Engrish signs in Tokyo.
I have encountered a whole new experience of language barriers in Japan, and there are not many people who speak English in Tokyo.
My companion and I walked around Chiang Mai on the first day off the overnight train from Bangkok. We were a little tired from the disrupted sleep of the previous evening, but excited to wander the streets of this northern Thai city. We stopped at numerous wats inside the city walls—many more than were on …
For a short time before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, I taught at a language center in Shenzhen. It wasn’t entirely legal as the company couldn’t get me a residence permit and had me apply for business visas for which I was labelled a consultant. Fortunately, while stories circulated about visa crackdowns across China, I …
While in China I encountered many signs that didn’t make much sense. Most of these signs were written in Chinglish and poorly translated. Despite the numerous campaigns in major cities to proofread such signs (as well as menus), there were still plenty of errors. Sometimes it wasn’t what was lost in translation that caused the …
Learning some basics in any language can be useful. In Chinese, it’s important to also learn some hand signals.
Whether it’s about an official government sign or just a restaurant menu, everyone who has been to China has stories of Chinglish.
More than a few people asked me if I speak Spanish prior to and after my journey to Panama. My answer was rather jumbled.
