‘Chinglish’ – A product of individual words being translated literally from the rather metaphorical language of Chinese into English… directly, and without consideration of the meaning of the sentence.

This photo is of a hair salon: “The Dream Satisfactory Sends The Cosmetology”

I’m on the Qing Guay, (light rail public transit), as I type this on my phone, and the announcement for the arrival at the next station in English says, “The (Station Name) is here.”

I’ve often seen terms like this on places like the FAIL blog, or with the term ‘English Fail’ attached, but I disagree! What I see here is a willingness to TRY, and that is key to learning.

I’m so hesitant to try with my limited Chinese that my learning curve is more like an unscalable cliff! Here in Dalian, I’ve seen many fearless English learners that want only to improve and don’t think of their limited ability and mistakes along the way as failures, but simply as opportunities to improve. There is a valuable lesson to be learned here!

Still, some of the Chingish I’ve seen has been irresistibly funny, and I’ll share a few on my Daily Ink.