OT; Chinglish

[The Medway Handyman]

Installed a £60 bog in a box yesterday, temporary measure pending bathroom refit at Handyman Towers.

Not at all bad for the money, instructions were a hoot!

First of all they warned that it must be 'installing from careerman' and not to use 'corrodent cleansers or inpregant' in the tank.

First thing to install, the fill valve. I 'annoted' that 'the filter has beer inserted into the bottom of the fiu valve'. I was pleased about that.

Adjusting the fill level was easy, all you had to do was 'circumgyrate screw to adjusting the right water line'. I made a note to 'be sure to the export of refill tube tower above water line'.

Now for the flush valve - simple. I 'circumgyrate out of seat, passing through export hole and tighten nut by hands,'. I made sure 'to flapper run from axis easy, adjusting slice to control fill'.

So far so good. Now just the flush button to go. All I had to do was 'circumgyrate it out of the big nut' and 'adjusting the location according as the director of half & full flush'. Doddle.

Much better than my Chinese mind.

So, if anyone wants advice on circumgyrateing anything, I'm your man.

[Peter Andrews]

...but did you screw it to the wall?

Peter

[Peter Parry]

I once had a meter with the instructions "Aware not to fall this unit down the floor or damage will be resulted" I also had a device whose (quite thick) manual was boldly emblazoned "English Version" on the cover and head and foot of every page - all of which were written in Chinese.

[Clot]

Interestingly, there's a job opportunity for those that can translate Mandarin to English. Due to the costs of doing so in China, there is a reticence. I once had to try to get the jist of a construction contract in Beijing, my Chinese clients would not translate it due to the costs. By talking to various Chinese contacts and working out commonality of the hieroglyphs, I found out what I needed to know!

[PeterC]

Had an aircon unit at work, a through-the-wall type, that had a plastic,

3-sided cover for the outside. The instruction said that the cover could "stop bad weather at any time". Rather useful and very powerful for a bit of plastic!

[The Medway Handyman]

Hmmm. The manufacturers had obviously tried to translate the instuctions themselves using a phrasebook or dictionary. Not hard to connect 'curcumgyrate' to 'undo' and other stuff. I wonder if there is a few quid to be made just putting their attempts into clear English?

Wonder why the importer hasn't done it? I would have.

[Andrew Gabriel]

They managed to sell it without doing so, so why bother?

[Rod]

Possibly the worst of all worlds would be if those instructions were passed on to an excellent native English speaker for tarting up. The resulting sentences might be grammatically perfect, but saying absolute rubbish. At least when left in Chinglish it is obvious that you need to be very careful in interpretation.

(A bit like the way spelling checkers substitute plausible, validly spelled words for obvious typos, thus hiding the mistakes. Does this get us onto Chinese checkers? :-) )

And don't we circumgyrate at Hanger Lane?

[Chris J Dixon]

Many years ago my Honda 50 handbook included the gems "Please refrain from unloaded puffing needlessly" and "Please to use our genuine parts in your beloved machine for ever".

Chris

[PeterC]

My Honda 50 (and 90) didn't last forever :-(

[John]

I installed a chinese manufactured toilet a few years ago and the instructions said "if all is going swimmingly...."

John