LONGGANG People’s Court has drawn wide attention on the Internet over the past few days for its false and bizarre English translations on the door plates of various courtrooms and offices.
The court later said that it had taken down the erroneous plates, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
An online post appeared Monday afternoon showing that some of the names of the courtrooms in the Longgang court had incorrect Chinese-to-English translations.
For instance, the “administrative courtroom” in Chinese was translated to “Hang Zheng Ting,” which appeared to be directly transliterated from the mixture of Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations.
The “intellectual property rights courtroom” was translated to “Three People Court.” This incorrect English phrase was also transliterated from “Min San Ting” in Chinese, which indicated the courtroom was dealing with third-category cases regarding IPRs.
The area of quick arbitration was translated into “Speed Cutting Area” in English. The Chinese character for “arbitrate” also means cutting with a knife or a pair of scissors.
A lot of netizens left comments below the online post, complaining about the court’s lack of professionalism. Some have pointed out that the English translations were copied from online translation software. Others think that the court is a serious public institution and the wrong translations could hurt the public’s belief in the court’s professionalism.
The court later confirmed that they had put up the wrong door plates and came to realize the signs were incorrect Monday morning. They had already taken down the plates by Monday afternoon, according to the court.
The door plates were made and installed by an advertising company over the weekend, said the court. It also pledged not to make the same mistakes in the future.