Chinglish unlikely to vanish totally by '08 Olympics

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing is unlikely to be totally free of Chinglish signs by the 2008 Olympics, but the government is increasing efforts to improve the capital's once lamentable English, a senior official said on Wednesday.

"You can't talk in absolutes," Liu Yang, deputy head of efforts to clean up Beijing's pre-Olympic language problems, told a news conference.

"We'll work as hard as possible to extinguish the problem and get more city residents involved," he added. "Of course, it will still happen occasionally, but I think we can ensure that once mistakes are found, they are rectified."

China is littered with wrong, embarrassing and sometimes plain rude signs in Chinese English, examples of which often end up on the Internet, such as writing "oil gate" for a petrol station, and "the slippery are very crafty" -- slippery when wet.

Liu said Beijing's road signs had already been standardised and mistakes corrected, and by the end of this year the tourist, business, medical and public transport sectors would get the same treatment.

Residents and foreign visitors are being encouraged to report mistakes online or by telephone to the 35-person committee of experts charged with addressing the Chinglish problem, or directly to the offending company or government office.

"I think that various departments pay great attention to this problem," said Liu, himself a fluent English speaker. "It's much more proactive than before. People pay more attention to image now."

Still, two areas stand out that will be challenging to address, Liu said -- advertisements and menus.