|
REGIONAL> Culture Tourism
![]() |
|
English menu stir fries food for thought
By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-18 07:31 The process of standardizing a menu translation is a double-edged sword. It removes the ambiguity and unintended humor, for sure. But then it takes away the fun and the rich connotation too. It turns a menu into the equivalent of plain rice, which has the necessary nutrients but is devoid of flavor. The Beijing municipal government's foreign affairs office and the Beijing tourism bureau have jointly published a book, Chinese Menu in English Version. It lists 170 pages of Chinese and Western dishes, and beverages. And nowhere is "chicken without a sexual life" to be found.
The book will no doubt come in handy to those restaurants that depend on translation software for the English names of dishes. "Government Abused Chicken" is now correctly rendered as Kung Pao Chicken. It is praiseworthy that the translators - two dozens of them - conducted a study of Chinese restaurants in English-speaking countries, which have distilled the mishmash of translated terms into a more or less universally accepted set of norms. In this sense, the process of standardization has been going on for at least 150 years, and all the book compilers needed to do was to collect as many overseas menus as possible. |
云阳县| 兰坪| 祁阳县| 德兴市| 深泽县| 雷山县| 丹阳市| 西贡区| 神农架林区| 民乐县| 平阴县| 印江| 泸州市| 沁源县| 井研县| 方山县| 陆河县| 灵武市| 漳州市| 织金县| 丰台区| 仙居县| 祁东县| 定边县| 武清区| 诸暨市| 广宁县| 青铜峡市| 涡阳县| 陆丰市| 马尔康县| 昌吉市| 突泉县| 勃利县| 江西省| 赣州市| 湘阴县| 原阳县| 米林县| 澄城县| 平塘县|