2009-03-01 19:25:01Esther

Chinglish@2006-09-21

What is Chinglish?

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinglish) , "Chinglish, a portmanteau of the words Chinese and English, is an English pseudo-dialect heavily affected by Chinese grammar and accent."

Let me show you a real life example how a person writes a message by using Chinglish:

The following email message is extracted from a senior staff of a Hong Kong big company:

"Refer the conversation with Mr.X in this morning, in last month end, I can not rec'd Taiwan's PD before 26th cut-off date, that I need to void your PD and in 27th when I rec'd  this PD and I need re-input again. So, in this month I discuss with my accountant (Mr. Y), he suggest Taiwan input last PD date on 21/09/2006 (today), I estimated this date PD may deliverly to HK on 23/09/06 p.m., and on 25/09/06 we can checking and posting this PD in this current month.

Other remaining Taiwan's PD will input the date on 26/09/06 and norminally processing, if I rec'd this PD I will norminally to check and post.

If you have any question, pls direct to call me."

以下是大概的中文原意(廣東話):

"根據早上與X先生的通電, 上個月尾26號折數日之前我收唔到台灣分公司的PD, 所以我要取消你的PD, 當我在27號才收到的PD, 我要再重新將資料輸入電腦系統, 所以今個月我和我的會計師傾過, 他提出台灣分公司的PD最後處理日期是在21/9/2006, 我估計這PD可能在23/9/2006下午送到香港, 25/9/2006, 我地可以核及輸入

我們會將其他台灣分公司的PD26/9/2006日期輸入電腦系統, 並照原本程序處理

如有任何問題, 請直接聯絡我"

This over ten-year working experienced senior staff will be a degree holder of unknown overseas university that organises degree courses in Hong Kong in coming year. Before this senior staff sents out this email to his/her boss, this senior staff requests a friend who is an around 3-year working experienced, junior staff level and degree holder of one of the Hong Kong universities, to check the above paragraph. His/her friend does not want to rewrite the whole paragragh(he/she thinks that it is very ridiculous to proof and edit the senior's email and why a senior staff who earns a high paid salary and has good staff benefit, is so poor in English by using Chinese grammar and accent), so he/she just corrects the basic grammar:  

"Refer the conversation with  Mr.X  this morning, in last month end, I cannot rec'd  Taiwan 's PD before 26th cut-off date, that I need to void your PD and in  27th when I rec'd  this PD and I need re-input again. So, in this month I discuss with my accountant ( Mr.Y ), he suggests Taiwan input last PD date on  21/09/2006 (today), I estimated this date PD may be delivered to HK on  23/09/06 p.m., and on 25/09/06 we can check and post this PD this current month. 

Other remaining Taiwan 's PD will be inputed the date on  26/09/06 and normally processed, if I rec'd this PD I will normally check and post.

If you have any question, pls direct to call me . "

From my point of view, if I am that senior staff, I will write more appropriate email as below:

"Last month, I could not receive any Taiwan Office's PD before cut-off date(26th Aug). When I received PD on 27th Aug, I voided the old PD and replaced it by the new one. It really wastes our time to redo the work again. So after discussion with accountant, Mr. Y, he suggests that the deadline for processing Taiwan Office's PD is 21st each month. Let me remind you that you must sent your PD before 21st each month afterward, otherwise, I cannot check and post them into the system before cut-off date.

After our conversation with Mr. X this morning, I know that PD for September have already sent to HK. Therefore maybe I will receive these PD on 23/9/2006. I will check and process them together with other remaining Taiwan office's PD. But starting from now, please sent the document to Hong Kong before 21st. 

If you have any question, pls direct call me."

I am not so good at English. But how do you think? which one is better?