The government has been urged to standardize the translation of public signs and notices, Xinhua reported on Wednesday.
據新華社11日報道，政府正大力推進路牌、公示語翻譯的規范化。

CPPCC member Tang Jin, a national political adviser from central Hubei province, said as the country increasingly interacts with the international community, the problem of badly translated signs becomes of mounting importance.
出席兩會的湖北省政協委員唐瑾表示，在中國國際影響力日益提升的今天，公示語翻譯的重要性也日益凸顯。

She said awkward and incorrect translations are common in many areas across the country.
她表示誤譯和劣譯的問題在全國多地普遍存在。

Tang gave examples she has seen while traveling around the country. A reception desk, or zong tai in Chinese, was wrongly translated as "total desk" and exit, or chu kou in Chinese, was incorrectly translated as "export".
唐瑾舉了一些她在國內旅行時遇到的例子：漢語中的“總臺”（接待處）被錯譯成“total desk（整臺）”；“出口”則被譯為 "export"（貿易出口）。

She said correct translation is a sign of a nation's cultural capability and the problem should be taken seriously at government level.
唐瑾表示，正確的翻譯體現了一個國家的文化素質，有必要引起政府層面的重視。

Tang suggested that government departments offer financial and personnel support to create a standard manual of public sign translations and promote it across the country.
唐瑾建議政府部門牽頭投入人力和資金，編纂一本公示語標準手冊，在全國推廣。

China has already learnt costly lessons from the casual use of English.
中國已經為“亂用英語”付出了高昂的代價。

Beyond confusing public directories, and hilarious - or sickening - renditions of restaurant menus, the lack of accuracy in business documents has become the latest stumbling block to the sale of China's high-speed trains, something the country is most proud of and eager to sell around the world.
除了讓人不明所以的公共目錄，和讓人惡心又想笑的餐館菜單，最近一份有失精準的商業文件，將中國一項高鐵交易“攪黃”了。而高鐵是中國最驕傲、最熱切想要推向國際的項目。

Zhang Minyu, vice-general manager of overseas market with CSR Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co., told China Economic Weekly late last year that the company was once "one step away from winning a bid in north Europe in 2012" but finally lost the contract due to an error in translation of the construction plan.
南車株機分管海外市場的副總經理張旻宇在接受《中國經濟周刊》采訪時提到，2012年一個重大北歐項目，原本離競標成功只有一步之遙，卻因為方案中的一處翻譯錯誤而痛遭否定。

Vocabulary
directory：目錄
rendition：表演，表現
sickening：令人反感的
stumbling block：絆腳石

（譯者：無事此靜坐  編輯：侯瑋萍）

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