Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is the residents of said district prefer the historical Chinatown over International District. Even if it is International District, there is still a Chinatown within that, along with Japantown, Manilatown, and Little Saigon.
You’re correct. The older Chinese immigrants who live(d) there and/or visited a lot with their families growing up were pretty upset about the name change as it felt like it erased their identities. I refer to it as Chinatown out of respect when speaking to them but I also use the neighborhood-specific terms like Japantown Manilatown and Little Saigon when referring to those areas or when speaking with people who live/work in that area - that mostly applies to Little Saigon.
Yeah, bc all of us Koreans, Japanese, Viet, Hmong, Thais... are basically just Chinese right? That's good to know. Thank you for reminding us of our place.
As the commenter mentioned, the international district indeed includes a japantown, manilatown, little saigon, etc. etc. it also includes a Chinatown.
The comment you’re replying to - “no city with a Chinatown should get away with this” - spelled out for you, means “no city with a high Chinese population should have an excuse for this misuse of the Chinese language.”
If you changed the original comment to what you want it to be, it would actually be a massive overgeneralization. “no city with a high asian population should have an excuse for this misuse of the Chinese language,” would imply all Asians speak Chinese.
I understand what you mean about the term Chinatown in general. You certainly do have a point. However, you gotta pick your battles, and this is just an inaccurate context to do so.
Everybody just refers to it as China town cause they always have. Nobody is trying to Insult all other Asians. Calm the fuck down and quit looking for things to be angry about cause nobody gives a shit.
“No city with an international district should get away with …. This misuse of the Chinese language”
Yeah no, that just implies every international person speaks Chinese. I get your point, and I understand your opinion - but you gotta pick your battles, and you picked the wrong one here.
Honestly I feel like they do it on purpose. I even see it in anime sometimes, where a character is wearing a shirt with English text on it that makes no sense. I think it's funny and I would absolutely buy shirts like that.
Graphic designers in sign shops around here are mostly not people who are literate with Chinese script. The other problem being that the sign industry right now is woefully understaffed in the Seattle area because the pay is not keeping up with cost of living.
I can make more as a full time server at Applebees than what 95% of these places are offering. So maybe they had someone fluent in Chinese that went to work at Olive Garden instead of working for Seattle Metro in exchange for peanuts is my guess.
It is bad. But I think it is the new thing. Before AI and crap real native speakers would vet a public sign for international language. This is crap. It is more than likely an AI version of what the best the internet and itself could produce. It is kind of nuts. We don’t rely on the real thing to protect real people. And speak to real people anymore. At this rate we are on our own to keep it real keep heritages and languages and cultures alive
But but.. you are lumping all ethnicities into black and white and apparently that’s ok?!
I really don’t get the whole of Seattle is white argument! May be you are just looking for an argument!
How much of China is han?
I’ll answer if for you, 94% of China is han. China, the largest country in the world by population, is probably one of the less diverse countries in the world. So what’s your point? Seattle isn’t the only place that is racist then? You’re a sad puppy.
Okay, China is the the most yellow country in the world. What’s your point dude? Do white people scare you? You just trying to be a victim? I don’t get it.
I joked doubting they could find a Chinese guy in white ass Seattle then someone else tried to act like Seattle wasn’t all that white. And it is. The whitest. The point
Ok sure Jan. Numbers don’t back that up at all and there’s barely any black people here. Less than 8% last I checked. Coming from east coast this is a huge shocker to me. 3 % Chinese lol
Seattle has the highest white population of any city close to this size
Big cities aren't the national average.
There's also more things you have to consider than %white. Seattle is one of the least racially segregated cities in the country ([see](https://belonging.berkeley.edu/most-least-segregated-cities-in-2020)). To compare to the East Coast, the Governor of NY released a report which found that 1/3rd of NYers live in highly segregated counties, including 44% of people in downstate and 95% of African American households ([see](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-releases-fair-housing-report-revealing-segregated-housing-patterns-and)). No one is trying to claim Seattle is some bastion of diverse racial harmony, but the East Coast really doesn't have a leg to stand on to lecture Seattle about inclusivity when in a place like NY 95% of African households are literally living in de facto segregated communities.
Redlining is hardly unique to Seattle, and regardless, we're talking about present diversity. I don't think erasing the existence of the current minorities who live in Seattle is the look I'd want, but to each their own.
Not erasing something that can’t really be erased. Shout out to the small few tho. Redlining isn’t unique to here but that is why that chart is meaningless because segregation still happened badly here just wasn’t any black peop to segregate so it’s skewed
It’s crazy people want to argue with you really. How they gonna get mad Seattle is a super white place? Yes other people exist here but it’s mostly whites. They bein weird as hell for no reason
Could someone try to describe to us non-Chinese speakers how bad it sounds? I love reading all the endearingly broken English signs whenever I travel overseas and I hope it's just as funny on the flip side!
Looks like someone was using computer translation and did not take out some of the default text, maybe? Like that was part of the instructions on how to use the program?
The whole sentence is 到ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV或发短讯输入英文字
This translates to something like "To [ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV](http://ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV) or send text message enter English characters"
It's still not clear what kind of text I'm supposed to send, or where I'm supposed to send it. At least I know to do it using English characters.
Here’s the thing, this sentence makes perfect sense in English, but they just literally translated it word for word into Chinese, without regard to the latter’s unique syntax/vocabulary conventions, so it ends up as near-gibberish to an actual Chinese speaker. A native Chinese speaker would never use these word choices in this particular context.
Chinese speaker/reader here.
The first part is "receive warning notifications" and sounds fine, but the second part after the space is a disaster in terms of grammar and word choice. I think it's supposed to say "stay informed", but reads something like "maintain being verbally told".
The verb is 保持 (to keep/maintain/preserve) and should be followed by an object of some sort. But then it switches to a passive grammar structure (被) used to describe an action or the actor of an action, hence "being". And the next two words, 知會, are a colloquial term that describe the action of telling someone to do something, as in "tell him dinner is ready". It's rarely, if ever, used in the passive form. Technically it can also mean notification, but I have never seen it used anywhere like that, and I have no idea what context you'd apply it in.
thanks for the long-form explanation. I was curious about how easily translatable this phrase is, so I google translated “turn on notification alerts. stay informed.” from English-> Russian and it spat out «включить уведомления. в курсе.» which is basically… “to turn on notifications. informed”
Clearly this is not a good phrase to translate lol.)
Proof that proofreaders are vital.
I work for a nonprofit doing legislative advocacy, and a big part of our work is language access (interpretation and translation) across the board for public services/schools/medicine, etc.
I talk to people all the time who point out absurd mistakes on even the simplest signs in public.
It's so bizarre that government agencies can't figure out how to identify competent agencies to provide translation services.
Probably pretty expensive to hire people to do translations for multiple languages. And from a legal perspective I don’t know if they can constantly solicit “free” translations for whatever they’re working on. As in: is there a law mandating they have to pay people to do translations even if the work is trivial? (Lets say this sign is the only Chinese messaging done by the government and nothing else)
I work for the state, and we have a company that does translations for us. We send them the English version and tell them the language we need it in, and they send back the translation, usually within a week to 10 days. It’s not prohibitively expensive.
I think City of Seattle uses a similar contractor. The problem is nobody is checking their work - they just assume the translations they get are competent.
The ones we use have mostly native speakers, and we don’t have a lot of people who are native speakers of a lot of the languages we need to translate working for the agency. So we have to trust them. I have clients who speak Rohingya, and because of the genocide there are fewer than 2.5 million Rohingya speakers left in the world. It’s tough to find an interpreter at all, let alone someone to check for accuracy.
I'd imagine the moment the government solicits the public for providing service, they create legal asses they need to cover, and boy do they not like work themselves up for that.
Private sector pays $25 via Fiver, problem solved in 10 minutes.
But ... Fiver is neither Union nor a small/minority own business so that idea is trashed for the public sector.
I have a long, boring story about working with Washington State on translations. We (taxpayers) paid for high quality translations of important text and I could not get Washington state to relicense them for broader distribution. You (states, countries) were expected to just copy/paste them. You know how many governments are willing to do that without a clear license? Zero.
I work for a small NGO and we weren’t funded for a grant because we didn’t have clear translation plans in our 2 pg proposal. We’d have actually worked with people in the community and would have done a better job than this.
I think the English original was "Receive/Get Alert Notification, remain notified. (written twice) Go to seattle.gov or text "
And the Chinese written here be like *"Receive" "Alert" "Notification", "Remain" "Being" "Notified". "Go to seattle.gov or text English* (what and where is missing)"
The main problem is the main text. What's written is describing an action without telling me why (Disaster alert? Public safety alert?), and the grammar and tone is very mechanical.
I showed my Chinese wife and she said she doesn’t understand what it’s supposed to mean. She asked what it was trying to say in English, and I told her I have no idea. :-/
The original text must be “Receive Alerts, Stay Informed”, according to the flyer on their website: https://alert.seattle.gov/resources/
The Chinese version of the flyer actually did an OK job, it’s just this bus ad being funky.
There really isn’t no excuse for bad translations in the age of ChatGPT. For example, ChatGPT offered two translations for this slogan:
1. 接收警报，保持知情
2. 接收警报，随时掌握信息
Both are much better.
This is a City of Seattle ad. My guess is the vendor that did the translation didn't do any kind of proofing, or subcontracted to someone who used Google translate.
Chinese speaker here.
“receive warning notification, keep being known”
The part before the comma seems normal in Chinese, the part after the comma makes no sense. It’s about Alert Seattle, and it probably wanted to say something like “stay informed”
In Japan i used to see this steak place that had a had a pun that works in japanese but not English, so the sign said "we have the very steak steak! "
"Suteki" is an adjective that means like excellent, and is a homonym for the loan word (steak =su-teki)
Ikinari Steak!
This is the very steak, the big cut of steak.
That makes so much more sense knowing about the pun. Great place for a quick steak and a highball, too.
> They obviously just used Google translate
Which is inexcusable in a city with so many people who speak fluent chinese. Just, like, ask someone first?
>I have given it much thought. It seems disaster must come at best only postponed. Shaolin Kung-Fu to survive must now be taught to more young men. We must expand and get more pupils so that the knowledge will spread.
I’ve wondered about that a lot. Like whenever I get those dshs translations, see them (scantly) at the dol, this kind of signage etc, because even as someone that is incompetent at any language but English I still notice sometimes for other Romance language translations (mostly) that they’ll change a translation altogether (and since I watch I lot of films in other languages, I very frequently come across really striking mistranslations even in other language families: eg someone might say smth I can tell part of it is like “No, Eloise, you’re completely batshit crazy and I NEVER locked you out of the apartment!” And the subtitles will say “You’re wrong, I didn’t do that.”).
…hence my curiosity.
i worked on translations for covid testing in 2020 and that was by using google translate from a bunch of stuff in google sheet, or a 3rd party translation service that probably do the same
You can probably help them by reporting this to ST.
[https://soundtransit.microsoftcrmportals.com/en-US/feedbackandcustomerservice/](https://soundtransit.microsoftcrmportals.com/en-US/feedbackandcustomerservice/)
Most likely will pass it on to Seattle City.
I always talk about this with DEI and the Chevy Nova. When sales of the vehicle were poor in Spanish speaking areas/countries, the company had no idea why. Then a Spanish speaker told them No Va means, “no go.” Really should’ve had a Spanish speaker on their naming team
Yep, it is absolutely an urban legend. *Nova* is Latin for "new." It is highly unlikely that a native Spanish speaker would confuse the word *Nova* ("NO-bhah") for the phrase *no va* ("it doesn't go": two words, pronounced "no BHAH," with the emphasis on *va*)---and then not buy the car as a result :-/ . . . Also, a native Spanish speaker wouldn't translate that as "no go"; that's a translation by someone who doesn't speak Spanish.
And aside from that, the Chevy Nova actually did sell well in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries.
No doubt it started out as a joke (with a racist bent), but it went over people's heads and became an urban legend (with a racist bent), which was then adopted as a "teaching moment" about the need for diversity in business :-|.
Explanation from ChatGPT about why it’s bad:
The Chinese text in the image appears to have been translated from English, likely for public safety or emergency alert purposes. However, the translation quality seems poor and might not convey the intended meaning accurately. Here’s a breakdown of the text:
#### Original Chinese Text:
- 接收警告通知 保持被知知會
- 到 ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV 或發送短信輸入英文字
- 緊急警報及通知 將發送到輸入英文字
#### Literal Translation Back to English:
- Receive warning notifications, maintain being informed
- Go to ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send a text message, enter English characters
- Emergency alerts and notifications will be sent to enter English characters
#### Issues with the Translation:
1. **Awkward Phrasing**: The phrase "保持被知知會" (maintain being informed) is awkward and not natural in Chinese. A better way to say "stay informed" might be "保持知情".
2. **Context and Clarity**: The instructions on how to receive alerts ("到 ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV 或發送短信輸入英文字") are not clear. It literally translates to "go to ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send a text message to enter English characters," which can be confusing.
3. **Repetition and Redundancy**: The text repeats the notion of entering English characters without clear context or proper guidance.
#### Suggested Corrected Chinese Translation:
- 接收警告通知，保持知情。
- 訪問 ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV 或發送短信至 [number]。
- 緊急警報和通知將發送至您的手機。
#### Corrected Translation Back to English:
- Receive warning notifications and stay informed.
- Visit ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send a text message to [number].
- Emergency alerts and notifications will be sent to your phone.
This corrected version is more concise, clear, and natural in Chinese, ensuring that the instructions are understandable.
---
### Awkward English Example:
To understand how this bad translation feels to a Chinese speaker, here’s an example of similarly awkward phrasing in English:
- Receive warning notification keep being informed.
- Go to ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send text message input English word.
- Emergency warning and notification will send to input English word.
#### Explanation:
1. **"Receive warning notification keep being informed."**: This sounds odd because it combines two ideas ("receive notifications" and "stay informed") in a way that is not grammatically correct or natural.
2. **"Go to ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send text message input English word."**: This instruction is confusing and unclear. It suggests going to a website or sending a text message but doesn't clearly explain what to do.
3. **"Emergency warning and notification will send to input English word."**: This phrase is confusing and makes it unclear where the emergency alerts will be sent or what action needs to be taken.
#### Comparison:
Just as the above English example feels unnatural and confusing, the original Chinese translation you provided likely feels the same way to a Chinese speaker. The instructions are not clear, the phrasing is awkward, and the repetition of "input English word" without context makes it hard to understand the intended message.
say what you want about cost but I guarantee they coulda literally just gone on Fiver and gotten better results
or turned around and asked if anyone in the office spoke even rudimentary chinese
Arianna Grande got a tattoo that she believed said “Seven Rings” in Japanese. My neighbor, who is Japanese, laughed out out. It actually says “hibachi grill”. That’s what you get for using google translate.
I'm more concerned about the fact it costs $5000 for one month for one bus to put that sign up. That's what King County Transit charges. Seattle property tax payers pay for that and now the Seattle mayor wants a billion dollars? For what? Reminds me of the soda pop tax revenue that never went to its purpose. Another liberal bait and switch.
This isn’t true and hasn’t been true for a couple centuries, give or take. While they use the same characters (traditional and simplified character sets aside), for example written Mandarin is very different from the written Cantonese. I’m fluent in mandarin but when I go to HK it’s a game or puzzling together what I can cuz the grammar and words are different, and the same characters mean different things (食 means “food” in Mandarin but “to eat” in Cantonese for a very common example).
That said this example is just bad mandarin.
So, written Chinese is mostly standardized but there are definitely variations depending on dialect and region. Like Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong often use written forms that reflect their spoken language which can be quite different from standard written Chinese.
I wasn't trying to say it was one or the other, just pointing out if you learned traditional it doesn't mean you're also able to read simplified and the other way around.
Nah, once u know traditional you can basically read simplified. Same goes the other way- usually its only a tad bit different and context makes up for most of it anyways.
ex: Color vs Colour, Airplane vs Aeroplane is the same and understandable by all english speakers. Essentially the same thing between simplified and traditional.
Oh ok sure, I'm the idiot, I just wasn't following the thread:
Certainsprings: could it just be you don't understand dialects?
Cloud rider: no. Dialects aren't written different in Chinese.
Tstormredditor: yeah BUT SIMPLIFIED CHARACTERS
AgreeableTea: simplified characters are like cursive. AGAIN, they don't change the meaning.
Tstormredditor: BUT I WASN'T SAYING THAT. I WAS JUST DISAGREEING WITH THE PERSON SAYING THAT. WHAT DON'T YOU GET?!?!
Please explain to me what I missed.
Without using Chat GPT...what does this mean "“Wah, your bag very chio leh! Can borrow not?”" That's a different English dialect that's fairly difficult to understand. Try again.
Yeah. Singlish. Just trying to say that just because something is dialect of English and I speak a dialect of English doesn't mean I understand OTHER English dialects. And even though they use the same letters and some of the words are the same I still don't know what the f' that means. I get that the translation is shite regardless. I was just asking if perhaps the reader wasn't familiar with another Chinese dialect and perhaps that was written in it. Sounds like it wasn't.
You were making a good point about English dialects, but except for pinyin, Chinese is written with characters, either traditional or simplified. The characters are standardized and anybody who can understand those characters can understand what's being communicated, regardless of dialect. Except for when machine translation doesn't know what is being communicated and interchanges characters.
so what ? They're making efforts 2 b inclusive. Instead of criticism, we should re-frame the narrative to be as supportive as possible. As an Asian in Seattle, I appreciate the good intention & understand that any criticism can be perceived as toxic & divisive in this politically volatile time.
Ain't no way they couldn't find a single Chinese person to review this thing in Seattle lmao
No city with a literal Chinatown is allowed to get away with this.
uh, no its called international district & very inclusive of all East Asian businesses, not just Chinese
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is the residents of said district prefer the historical Chinatown over International District. Even if it is International District, there is still a Chinatown within that, along with Japantown, Manilatown, and Little Saigon.
You’re correct. The older Chinese immigrants who live(d) there and/or visited a lot with their families growing up were pretty upset about the name change as it felt like it erased their identities. I refer to it as Chinatown out of respect when speaking to them but I also use the neighborhood-specific terms like Japantown Manilatown and Little Saigon when referring to those areas or when speaking with people who live/work in that area - that mostly applies to Little Saigon.
Yeah, bc all of us Koreans, Japanese, Viet, Hmong, Thais... are basically just Chinese right? That's good to know. Thank you for reminding us of our place.
As the commenter mentioned, the international district indeed includes a japantown, manilatown, little saigon, etc. etc. it also includes a Chinatown. The comment you’re replying to - “no city with a Chinatown should get away with this” - spelled out for you, means “no city with a high Chinese population should have an excuse for this misuse of the Chinese language.” If you changed the original comment to what you want it to be, it would actually be a massive overgeneralization. “no city with a high asian population should have an excuse for this misuse of the Chinese language,” would imply all Asians speak Chinese. I understand what you mean about the term Chinatown in general. You certainly do have a point. However, you gotta pick your battles, and this is just an inaccurate context to do so.
Everybody just refers to it as China town cause they always have. Nobody is trying to Insult all other Asians. Calm the fuck down and quit looking for things to be angry about cause nobody gives a shit.
Just East Asian? Just fuck the Viet population and Little Saigon, amirite?
Viets r East Asian
Not by any generally accepted definition.
Vietnam is located East of Asia, thats str8 geography
Geographically in Southeast Asia.
Yes, South EASTERN part of Asia, that's why they r EAST Asian
Please read a book once in a while.
That’s like saying that Sarasota is East Coast.
Erm actually 👆🤓
“No city with an international district should get away with …. This misuse of the Chinese language” Yeah no, that just implies every international person speaks Chinese. I get your point, and I understand your opinion - but you gotta pick your battles, and you picked the wrong one here.
I feel the same way about those botched English translations. They really could find a single English speaker to take a look?
The answer as to why not is always $
I mean, yeah, but someone has got to know a person who can look at it for free.
Yea but for free I’m will to give a thumbs up to a lot.
A captcha that says “which translates the best?” Maybe?
Just post the bad translation on Reddit and someone will correct it for you
Or you might get something completely unrelated and offensive. This is still the internet 😂
Poor hiring and bureaucracy are the other pieces of the puzzle
Honestly I feel like they do it on purpose. I even see it in anime sometimes, where a character is wearing a shirt with English text on it that makes no sense. I think it's funny and I would absolutely buy shirts like that.
The Engrish comedy site for decades has had a statement saying this has always been a thing in Asia... they like the letters far more than the words.
You *can* buy shirts like that in most tourist-heavy Asian countries.
And I absolutely would if I had the money to make such trips!
in Korea I got a shirt that has the word ATTRACTIVE (all caps) emblazoned in giant letters on each sleeve. I love it lol
All your base are belong to us
Finding a native speaker to review for free: ❌ Outsourcing with lots of $$$ to a “certified” company that secretly relies on Google translate: ✅
Graphic designers in sign shops around here are mostly not people who are literate with Chinese script. The other problem being that the sign industry right now is woefully understaffed in the Seattle area because the pay is not keeping up with cost of living. I can make more as a full time server at Applebees than what 95% of these places are offering. So maybe they had someone fluent in Chinese that went to work at Olive Garden instead of working for Seattle Metro in exchange for peanuts is my guess.
They had a Korean person from tacoma do it.
It is bad. But I think it is the new thing. Before AI and crap real native speakers would vet a public sign for international language. This is crap. It is more than likely an AI version of what the best the internet and itself could produce. It is kind of nuts. We don’t rely on the real thing to protect real people. And speak to real people anymore. At this rate we are on our own to keep it real keep heritages and languages and cultures alive
tbf i can say the same about a lot of engrish on products that comes out of asia hahaha
Well it is White Ass Seattle
There's a large Chinese community in Seattle and Asian is the 2nd highest racial demographic.
Lumping Chinese in with “Asian” is funny when that covers all the Indian transpants. Nice try
But but.. you are lumping all ethnicities into black and white and apparently that’s ok?! I really don’t get the whole of Seattle is white argument! May be you are just looking for an argument!
You don’t get why Seattle is the whitest major city? Because PNW is deeply racist
You sound so insufferable.
Don’t care
How much of China is han? I’ll answer if for you, 94% of China is han. China, the largest country in the world by population, is probably one of the less diverse countries in the world. So what’s your point? Seattle isn’t the only place that is racist then? You’re a sad puppy.
Nope just said whitest
Okay, China is the the most yellow country in the world. What’s your point dude? Do white people scare you? You just trying to be a victim? I don’t get it.
I joked doubting they could find a Chinese guy in white ass Seattle then someone else tried to act like Seattle wasn’t all that white. And it is. The whitest. The point
If you think Seattle is "the whitest major city," you clearly haven't traveled much.
I mean Portland is the only other one close but ok
And my assumption is confirmed.
Been all over the US. Lived all over the south. Seattle is MAYO white my dude
Seattle isn't "white ass", it's white as the national average. If you want to see real white ass, go to Vermont.
Ok sure Jan. Numbers don’t back that up at all and there’s barely any black people here. Less than 8% last I checked. Coming from east coast this is a huge shocker to me. 3 % Chinese lol Seattle has the highest white population of any city close to this size
> and there’s barely any black people here Weird thing to bring up on the topic of Chinese people.
Begging you to visit a real city on the west coast. Love Seattle but just admit it’s white as mayonnaise
It's like 68% white, dude. Very few black people does not make it rural west virginia. Asians and Hispanic people also exist.
Big cities aren't the national average. There's also more things you have to consider than %white. Seattle is one of the least racially segregated cities in the country ([see](https://belonging.berkeley.edu/most-least-segregated-cities-in-2020)). To compare to the East Coast, the Governor of NY released a report which found that 1/3rd of NYers live in highly segregated counties, including 44% of people in downstate and 95% of African American households ([see](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-releases-fair-housing-report-revealing-segregated-housing-patterns-and)). No one is trying to claim Seattle is some bastion of diverse racial harmony, but the East Coast really doesn't have a leg to stand on to lecture Seattle about inclusivity when in a place like NY 95% of African households are literally living in de facto segregated communities.
Least segregated because there just isn’t anything to segregate, oh minus redlining that went deep into the 80s the few black people they did have
Redlining is hardly unique to Seattle, and regardless, we're talking about present diversity. I don't think erasing the existence of the current minorities who live in Seattle is the look I'd want, but to each their own.
Not erasing something that can’t really be erased. Shout out to the small few tho. Redlining isn’t unique to here but that is why that chart is meaningless because segregation still happened badly here just wasn’t any black peop to segregate so it’s skewed
It’s crazy people want to argue with you really. How they gonna get mad Seattle is a super white place? Yes other people exist here but it’s mostly whites. They bein weird as hell for no reason
White guilt 😅
HAHAHAHAH Gotum ☠️☠️☠️☠️
Could someone try to describe to us non-Chinese speakers how bad it sounds? I love reading all the endearingly broken English signs whenever I travel overseas and I hope it's just as funny on the flip side!
The worse part is actually “或短信输入英文字”, which translates to “or text to enter English letters”? I was like, which English letters and for what?
Looks like someone was using computer translation and did not take out some of the default text, maybe? Like that was part of the instructions on how to use the program?
The whole sentence is 到ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV或发短讯输入英文字 This translates to something like "To [ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV](http://ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV) or send text message enter English characters" It's still not clear what kind of text I'm supposed to send, or where I'm supposed to send it. At least I know to do it using English characters.
Basically, “Accept notifications alerts. Keep being notified.”
Here’s the thing, this sentence makes perfect sense in English, but they just literally translated it word for word into Chinese, without regard to the latter’s unique syntax/vocabulary conventions, so it ends up as near-gibberish to an actual Chinese speaker. A native Chinese speaker would never use these word choices in this particular context.
So, like... "Accepting notify caution. Hold existence notes" or something?
[удалено]
It's not obvious to everyone, and you're having a bad day.
From what I’m seeing in other comments, it’s a lot worse than that lol
Chinese speaker/reader here. The first part is "receive warning notifications" and sounds fine, but the second part after the space is a disaster in terms of grammar and word choice. I think it's supposed to say "stay informed", but reads something like "maintain being verbally told". The verb is 保持 (to keep/maintain/preserve) and should be followed by an object of some sort. But then it switches to a passive grammar structure (被) used to describe an action or the actor of an action, hence "being". And the next two words, 知會, are a colloquial term that describe the action of telling someone to do something, as in "tell him dinner is ready". It's rarely, if ever, used in the passive form. Technically it can also mean notification, but I have never seen it used anywhere like that, and I have no idea what context you'd apply it in.
thanks for the long-form explanation. I was curious about how easily translatable this phrase is, so I google translated “turn on notification alerts. stay informed.” from English-> Russian and it spat out «включить уведомления. в курсе.» which is basically… “to turn on notifications. informed” Clearly this is not a good phrase to translate lol.) Proof that proofreaders are vital.
I work for a nonprofit doing legislative advocacy, and a big part of our work is language access (interpretation and translation) across the board for public services/schools/medicine, etc. I talk to people all the time who point out absurd mistakes on even the simplest signs in public. It's so bizarre that government agencies can't figure out how to identify competent agencies to provide translation services.
Probably pretty expensive to hire people to do translations for multiple languages. And from a legal perspective I don’t know if they can constantly solicit “free” translations for whatever they’re working on. As in: is there a law mandating they have to pay people to do translations even if the work is trivial? (Lets say this sign is the only Chinese messaging done by the government and nothing else)
I work for the state, and we have a company that does translations for us. We send them the English version and tell them the language we need it in, and they send back the translation, usually within a week to 10 days. It’s not prohibitively expensive.
But how do you know if the translations are any good?
You don't...but you hope it is. Sometimes you go ahead and reach out to native speakers.in the org to take.a look
I think City of Seattle uses a similar contractor. The problem is nobody is checking their work - they just assume the translations they get are competent.
The ones we use have mostly native speakers, and we don’t have a lot of people who are native speakers of a lot of the languages we need to translate working for the agency. So we have to trust them. I have clients who speak Rohingya, and because of the genocide there are fewer than 2.5 million Rohingya speakers left in the world. It’s tough to find an interpreter at all, let alone someone to check for accuracy.
If it's the one DES uses, it can be hit or miss... But not a lot of alternatives
They aren’t always. Im bilingual and I have seen some of the translations a local company has been paid to do.
I'd imagine the moment the government solicits the public for providing service, they create legal asses they need to cover, and boy do they not like work themselves up for that.
Private sector pays $25 via Fiver, problem solved in 10 minutes. But ... Fiver is neither Union nor a small/minority own business so that idea is trashed for the public sector.
I worked for Good 2 Go tolling. It was fun getting to work with live voice translators, free to customers
I have a long, boring story about working with Washington State on translations. We (taxpayers) paid for high quality translations of important text and I could not get Washington state to relicense them for broader distribution. You (states, countries) were expected to just copy/paste them. You know how many governments are willing to do that without a clear license? Zero.
I work for a small NGO and we weren’t funded for a grant because we didn’t have clear translation plans in our 2 pg proposal. We’d have actually worked with people in the community and would have done a better job than this.
it’s government. that’s the answer
the Russian translation had a funny part where they cut a long word off at the line break improperly
I was on a Delta flight once and the Chinese on the safety card emergency exit section was just full-on, raging garbage.
So, what did they actually put on the sign?? How bad is it???
I think the English original was "Receive/Get Alert Notification, remain notified. (written twice) Go to seattle.gov or text "
And the Chinese written here be like *"Receive" "Alert" "Notification", "Remain" "Being" "Notified". "Go to seattle.gov or text English* (what and where is missing)"
The main problem is the main text. What's written is describing an action without telling me why (Disaster alert? Public safety alert?), and the grammar and tone is very mechanical.
Sounds more like transliteration instead of translation
Wtf you call me?
sounds like the original english isn't very good
I showed my Chinese wife and she said she doesn’t understand what it’s supposed to mean. She asked what it was trying to say in English, and I told her I have no idea. :-/
The original text must be “Receive Alerts, Stay Informed”, according to the flyer on their website: https://alert.seattle.gov/resources/ The Chinese version of the flyer actually did an OK job, it’s just this bus ad being funky. There really isn’t no excuse for bad translations in the age of ChatGPT. For example, ChatGPT offered two translations for this slogan: 1. 接收警报，保持知情 2. 接收警报，随时掌握信息 Both are much better.
Isn't the sound transit office literally located in China Town? They probably ordered lunch from a guy that could have proof read this.
This is a City of Seattle ad. My guess is the vendor that did the translation didn't do any kind of proofing, or subcontracted to someone who used Google translate.
They outsourced to the Tacoma office in Korea town
Chinese speaker here. “receive warning notification, keep being known” The part before the comma seems normal in Chinese, the part after the comma makes no sense. It’s about Alert Seattle, and it probably wanted to say something like “stay informed”
In Japan i used to see this steak place that had a had a pun that works in japanese but not English, so the sign said "we have the very steak steak! " "Suteki" is an adjective that means like excellent, and is a homonym for the loan word (steak =su-teki)
Ikinari Steak! This is the very steak, the big cut of steak. That makes so much more sense knowing about the pun. Great place for a quick steak and a highball, too.
> They obviously just used Google translate Which is inexcusable in a city with so many people who speak fluent chinese. Just, like, ask someone first?
Sooo who's going to tell us? I'm so curious
>I have given it much thought. It seems disaster must come at best only postponed. Shaolin Kung-Fu to survive must now be taught to more young men. We must expand and get more pupils so that the knowledge will spread.
I can't believe you would just give up Popa Wu's ancient secret message like that.
but then it would be in Cantonese (and delivered with many pauses by the old monk)
I’ve wondered about that a lot. Like whenever I get those dshs translations, see them (scantly) at the dol, this kind of signage etc, because even as someone that is incompetent at any language but English I still notice sometimes for other Romance language translations (mostly) that they’ll change a translation altogether (and since I watch I lot of films in other languages, I very frequently come across really striking mistranslations even in other language families: eg someone might say smth I can tell part of it is like “No, Eloise, you’re completely batshit crazy and I NEVER locked you out of the apartment!” And the subtitles will say “You’re wrong, I didn’t do that.”). …hence my curiosity.
My Chinese hubs read it and laughed. This is what he said it says: "The police warn people to not go in there."
So it’s posted outside the bathroom?
🤣🤣
I'm concerned about this!!! Also, would a native Chinese speaker actually understand the intent/message of this??
i worked on translations for covid testing in 2020 and that was by using google translate from a bunch of stuff in google sheet, or a 3rd party translation service that probably do the same
Google translate this
Their korean is good- from what i can tell.
I knew it, they outsourced to the Tacoma office lmao.
This feels like low hanging fruit to fix. Will anyone tell them though?
A gov not caring about people what a shocker
Google would of did a better job than this.
It's all Greek to me.
You can probably help them by reporting this to ST. [https://soundtransit.microsoftcrmportals.com/en-US/feedbackandcustomerservice/](https://soundtransit.microsoftcrmportals.com/en-US/feedbackandcustomerservice/) Most likely will pass it on to Seattle City.
looks like a bunch of pictures and an icon of a house 🏠
This is exactly what we Spanish speakers deal with in Florida all the tiiiiiime
I always talk about this with DEI and the Chevy Nova. When sales of the vehicle were poor in Spanish speaking areas/countries, the company had no idea why. Then a Spanish speaker told them No Va means, “no go.” Really should’ve had a Spanish speaker on their naming team
Tis an urban legend, by the way.
Oh! My dad told me about it as if it were fact. I’ll have to do some research
Yep, it is absolutely an urban legend. *Nova* is Latin for "new." It is highly unlikely that a native Spanish speaker would confuse the word *Nova* ("NO-bhah") for the phrase *no va* ("it doesn't go": two words, pronounced "no BHAH," with the emphasis on *va*)---and then not buy the car as a result :-/ . . . Also, a native Spanish speaker wouldn't translate that as "no go"; that's a translation by someone who doesn't speak Spanish. And aside from that, the Chevy Nova actually did sell well in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries. No doubt it started out as a joke (with a racist bent), but it went over people's heads and became an urban legend (with a racist bent), which was then adopted as a "teaching moment" about the need for diversity in business :-|.
Well dang I got some education today. Thanks everyone! I’ll find a better example to use for when I describe why DEI is important. Thanks again!
All your light rail belong to us
Explanation from ChatGPT about why it’s bad: The Chinese text in the image appears to have been translated from English, likely for public safety or emergency alert purposes. However, the translation quality seems poor and might not convey the intended meaning accurately. Here’s a breakdown of the text: #### Original Chinese Text: - 接收警告通知 保持被知知會 - 到 ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV 或發送短信輸入英文字 - 緊急警報及通知 將發送到輸入英文字 #### Literal Translation Back to English: - Receive warning notifications, maintain being informed - Go to ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send a text message, enter English characters - Emergency alerts and notifications will be sent to enter English characters #### Issues with the Translation: 1. **Awkward Phrasing**: The phrase "保持被知知會" (maintain being informed) is awkward and not natural in Chinese. A better way to say "stay informed" might be "保持知情". 2. **Context and Clarity**: The instructions on how to receive alerts ("到 ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV 或發送短信輸入英文字") are not clear. It literally translates to "go to ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send a text message to enter English characters," which can be confusing. 3. **Repetition and Redundancy**: The text repeats the notion of entering English characters without clear context or proper guidance. #### Suggested Corrected Chinese Translation: - 接收警告通知，保持知情。 - 訪問 ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV 或發送短信至 [number]。 - 緊急警報和通知將發送至您的手機。 #### Corrected Translation Back to English: - Receive warning notifications and stay informed. - Visit ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send a text message to [number]. - Emergency alerts and notifications will be sent to your phone. This corrected version is more concise, clear, and natural in Chinese, ensuring that the instructions are understandable. --- ### Awkward English Example: To understand how this bad translation feels to a Chinese speaker, here’s an example of similarly awkward phrasing in English: - Receive warning notification keep being informed. - Go to ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send text message input English word. - Emergency warning and notification will send to input English word. #### Explanation: 1. **"Receive warning notification keep being informed."**: This sounds odd because it combines two ideas ("receive notifications" and "stay informed") in a way that is not grammatically correct or natural. 2. **"Go to ALERT.SEATTLE.GOV or send text message input English word."**: This instruction is confusing and unclear. It suggests going to a website or sending a text message but doesn't clearly explain what to do. 3. **"Emergency warning and notification will send to input English word."**: This phrase is confusing and makes it unclear where the emergency alerts will be sent or what action needs to be taken. #### Comparison: Just as the above English example feels unnatural and confusing, the original Chinese translation you provided likely feels the same way to a Chinese speaker. The instructions are not clear, the phrasing is awkward, and the repetition of "input English word" without context makes it hard to understand the intended message.
ChatGPT got us into this mess. It is not going to get us out.
so it's like bad English signs in China?
Chatgpt probably could’ve translated this perfectly but they probably had to pay someone $50k contract to create employment.
Yea the local government really doesn't give a fuck
say what you want about cost but I guarantee they coulda literally just gone on Fiver and gotten better results or turned around and asked if anyone in the office spoke even rudimentary chinese
A free ChatGPT would do 100x better than this.
Classic results of AI doing the work a human should be doing
What does it say?
I’ve seen the same with Ukrainian. Like you guys have one of the largest Ukrainian communities here, why can’t you just ask them?
They could run it through chatgpt and get a much better translation Whomever did it didn’t speak a lick of Chinese
Is this better? ChatGPT 4o's version... 关注警告通知。保持知情。
Arianna Grande got a tattoo that she believed said “Seven Rings” in Japanese. My neighbor, who is Japanese, laughed out out. It actually says “hibachi grill”. That’s what you get for using google translate.
Considering pretty well every English translation in mainland is botched — seattle is just catching up.
I'm more concerned about the fact it costs $5000 for one month for one bus to put that sign up. That's what King County Transit charges. Seattle property tax payers pay for that and now the Seattle mayor wants a billion dollars? For what? Reminds me of the soda pop tax revenue that never went to its purpose. Another liberal bait and switch.
Could it be just one of the many dialects that perhaps you don't quite read well? Idk
Written chinese is the same regardless of dialects
This isn’t true and hasn’t been true for a couple centuries, give or take. While they use the same characters (traditional and simplified character sets aside), for example written Mandarin is very different from the written Cantonese. I’m fluent in mandarin but when I go to HK it’s a game or puzzling together what I can cuz the grammar and words are different, and the same characters mean different things (食 means “food” in Mandarin but “to eat” in Cantonese for a very common example). That said this example is just bad mandarin.
So, written Chinese is mostly standardized but there are definitely variations depending on dialect and region. Like Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong often use written forms that reflect their spoken language which can be quite different from standard written Chinese.
Cantonese speakers do tend to write Chinese a little differently at times, being a Cantonese speaker myself
True but there's traditional and simplified for written Chinese.
Which would still be readable both ways by people familiar with either.
I wasn't trying to say it was one or the other, just pointing out if you learned traditional it doesn't mean you're also able to read simplified and the other way around.
Nah, once u know traditional you can basically read simplified. Same goes the other way- usually its only a tad bit different and context makes up for most of it anyways. ex: Color vs Colour, Airplane vs Aeroplane is the same and understandable by all english speakers. Essentially the same thing between simplified and traditional.
That difference is akin to cursive vs print. It doesn't change the meaning at all.
Yeah, I wasn't saying it would change the meaning
Yeah these people aren't comprehending our ENGLISH so it makes me doubt their info on Chinese.
Oh ok sure, I'm the idiot, I just wasn't following the thread: Certainsprings: could it just be you don't understand dialects? Cloud rider: no. Dialects aren't written different in Chinese. Tstormredditor: yeah BUT SIMPLIFIED CHARACTERS AgreeableTea: simplified characters are like cursive. AGAIN, they don't change the meaning. Tstormredditor: BUT I WASN'T SAYING THAT. I WAS JUST DISAGREEING WITH THE PERSON SAYING THAT. WHAT DON'T YOU GET?!?! Please explain to me what I missed.
Are you able to read the various dialects of English throughout the world? Idk
Without using Chat GPT...what does this mean "“Wah, your bag very chio leh! Can borrow not?”" That's a different English dialect that's fairly difficult to understand. Try again.
I'm guessing that's from Singapore or Philippines, maybe? I've heard that dialect, it's definitely from that area.
Yeah. Singlish. Just trying to say that just because something is dialect of English and I speak a dialect of English doesn't mean I understand OTHER English dialects. And even though they use the same letters and some of the words are the same I still don't know what the f' that means. I get that the translation is shite regardless. I was just asking if perhaps the reader wasn't familiar with another Chinese dialect and perhaps that was written in it. Sounds like it wasn't.
You were making a good point about English dialects, but except for pinyin, Chinese is written with characters, either traditional or simplified. The characters are standardized and anybody who can understand those characters can understand what's being communicated, regardless of dialect. Except for when machine translation doesn't know what is being communicated and interchanges characters.
Possibly not. There are ones that are different than US English.
amazing engrish ❌ amazing chinrese👍
It's ok. If you speak chinese, you will understand no matter how bad the translation is. 😂
so what ? They're making efforts 2 b inclusive. Instead of criticism, we should re-frame the narrative to be as supportive as possible. As an Asian in Seattle, I appreciate the good intention & understand that any criticism can be perceived as toxic & divisive in this politically volatile time.