OT: Appalling English

Subject: OT: Appalling English
From: Yosuke Ichikawa <ichikawayosuke -at- obun -dot- co -dot- jp>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 00:01:14 +0900

Iユm coming in late in this thread, but Iユve just skimmed through about 2 weeks of Digest, and thought I have to write.

Iユve just seen the メEngrishモ site. My colleague is giving me a strange look as Iユm having a hard time trying to contain my bursts of laughter.

(I hope you donユt mind my renaming the thread to メOTモ, since, while the latter part of this long message has some relevance to tech writing, the first half is just about the way the Japanese people are.)


1) About the メEngrishモ phenomenon

The reason メEngrishモ (please take a look at the site if you donユt know what Iユm talking about) is so popular here in our country, I have to conclude, is because it definitely helps sell the product.

Itユs everywhere and on everything; name of buildings, stores, businesses, on food packages, household products, stationery, etc. Far more often that you people would put a Chinese character on a T-shirt for the sake of design. The majority of Japanese donユt understand what the writing is supposed to mean, and they donユt care. Theyユll just see the the English phrases (well, メEngrishモ phrases, but they canユt tell) and get the impression that the product is somehow sophisticated than the ones without.

To be more precise, having the メEngrishモ on products is so popular that I guess it couldnユt be counted as a strong appealing effect in itself. But a Japanese teenage girl, for example, who likes to surround herself with cute little thingies, would certainly choose a colorful notebook with perhaps a drawing of some cute creature, and of course the fancy メEngrishモ.

Itユs strange, and I never buy such products, unless itユs something thatユs quickly comsumed, like potato chips; you couldnユt find one without it. But with the unbelivable popularity of メEngrishモ, I know the majority of people do not mind seeing it on the things they buy.

I just remembered that the humble apartment that my family and seven other families live in is called メroiyaru-rejidennsuモ (メRoyal Residenceモ). Weユre all common people, of course! They donユt think about what the English means; they just like the fancy English sound. (Let me quickly add as excuse that I would be very limited in choice if I had to exclude all apartments with these sort of stupid names!)

I also just remembered the name of a motel located not far from where I live. Itユs near a river. The place is appropriately named, メHotel Liver Sideモ. Yes, most of us canユt discern the L from the R. (Whenever this subject comes up, I always recall the Monty Python piece where they speak every line replacing the two with each other, which is quite amazing.) Perhaps incompetence is not such a sin. What puzzles me is why people still love to see--what they think is-- English, without understanding it.

So, with our great love for Engrish, some copywriter in an ad agency is told to come up with superficial prose that メenhances the product imageモ, and perhaps a non-1st class translator would try to convert it to English.

The Japanese メEngrishモ phenomemon is, in my view, a combination of 1. the sadly immature commercial mentality in majority of our people, 2. marketing demand, and 3. poor English skills.



2) About the quality of writing in English manuals for Japanese products

As someone mentioned in the thread, I think itユs ultimately a matter of cost, and how many good English writers (native or otherwise) are available, compared to the number of manuals that have to be written.

I saw メSpace Cowboysモ last weekend. Early in the film, Clint Eastwood, trying to fix his garage opener (or whatever itユs called), throws away the piece of paper he was holding, and says something to the effect of; itユs no use trying to read this stuff because some stupid Japanese must have written this, then some second-rate translator translated it, then another Japanese must have messed with the English afterwards.
(Not a quote. Itユs especially difficult for me with the low and mumbling way he speaks.)

At first, I felt just a bit offended (メnot all of us are like thatモ); but then I thought of how people in the US must be really fed up with such manuals in real life for something like this to come up as a line in a film.

The line interestingly also gives a good description of how many poorly written manuals are produced. Most of the time, a Japanese writer will write in Japanese. Then, they make the English version from there, but more often, an English _translator_ would just convert it to English, rather than an English tech writer _writing_ the English.

Iユm not blaming the translators. The best translator would think about what the writing is trying to say, and _write_ the English equivalent. But this takes time, and with the pressing due date (and the rate), I can understand that the translator simply wouldnユt have time for this, so such a person would be more the exception than the rule. Theyユre usually expected to do a メtranslationモ, provided with the J-draft but not the other reference material like the spec sheets, so they often have to settle for something close to a word-per-word conversion.

Then, after that, the person in charge for the manufacturer, メwell educatedモ and without an objective knowledge of his English ablities, might even try to メimproveモ the writing into what they perceive as English. Not all of them, but some really do this. The person who wrote the movie script must have some knowledge of the industry!

But back to my previous--and most important--point; the importance of English _writing_ when working from a J-version.
The difficulty of creating a well-written English manual from a J-version, I think, is due to the fact that Japanese language/writing is different from the English language/writing in a fundamental way.

We donユt have definite or indefinite articles. So, in normal J-writing, things are much more ambiguous about whether a certain statement is referring to the specific subject or the subject in general.
To give you an exaggerated example, if you could imagine a sentence, メPress button, and so and so will happen.モ, you wouldnユt know if the メbuttonモ refers to a specific button that was mentioned in the previous sentence, or if this statement applies to every button found on the machine.

We donユt have singular or plural forms of nouns. We certainly have numbers, and can use them if we choose to to modify a noun, but a noun is usually neither singular nor plural, whereas in English, itユs always either singular or plural as long as itユs countable. This is certainly a cause of ambiguity compared to English about what exactly the noun is referring to.

We have a very loose sense of the active and passive voice. For example, if something hit a window glass and the glass was broken, the natural expression in our language is to say メthe glass brokeモ, which may sound peculiar to you because the glass didnユt break by itself. (I wish I have a better example.)

We often donユt put a subject in a sentence. The subject is omitted as long as the speaker/writer feels its understandable from context. For example, if I really enjoyed my lunch, I would say, メWas goodモ. Not メ_I_ enjoyed the lunchモ, not メ_Lunch_ was greatモ, not even メ_It_ was goodモ; and this is not an ellipsis, an exception, but completely proper language.

So, the Japanese language is generally much vague compared to English. I hear the thinkers term this matter as not having a strict subject-object differentiation. I hope the linguists or the translation pros or who ever could jump in if you can add or offer a better example, but I think you get the picture.

As far as I know, itユs rare that the J-writer writes the J-version with some idea of how it should turn out in English. If one thinks in the articulation that oneユs language system provides, then most Japanese writers will write perfectly passable Japanese manuals without being technically precise as his English speaking counterparts.

I happen to write manuals in both lanugages, but sometimes, my client will give me a snippet written in Japanese and tell me to incorporate it in my present English manual. While at first read the sentence seems to be saying something, the more I try to put it in English, the more I have to try to think about what it is really trying to say, what unmentioned assumptions are made, and sometimes ask the client for details. It will often turn out as a completely different, but much more simple, sentence. It takes much more time to work from someoneユs J-writing than to originally write the English myself, working from the bits descriptions from the engineers.

There are a lot of great English writers and native English checkers here, Iユm sure, but compared to the amount of products/manuals, I guess thereユs not enough around (and the good people are pricey).

Someone in this thread said that many educated people in Japan can speak English. True for perhaps a very very small fraction, or the ones who were fortunate to happen to have lived in an English speaking country--like myself--, but I have to say in general itユs a great overstatement.

English education starts from the first year in junior highschool here, and continues to at least the sophomore year in college, so a Japanese whoユs had college education would have studied English for at least 8 years. Something is very wrong with this education, because while a few may be able to fake the speaking part, almost none can read or write with ease (I hear a lot of other asian nations are far more successful in this respect). The ubiquity of メEngrishモ, as Iユve repeated above, is proof of this fact.

Most companies donユt understand the importance of this English _writing_ part, simply because they canユt really tell if the final English writing is good or bad. Even if they do, I guess most feel they canユt afford the cost (time and money). Maybe for their very best メflagshipモ product, but not for most others.

When their manual receive complaint from the customer, I can imagine they will quickly change their views, however. So Mr. Eastwood should perhaps have taken the time to write or call to the manufacturer. Hopefully not for a manual I was involved in, though!

Thanks for reading.

Yosuke Ichikawa
Tech writer
Obun Printing, Tokyo






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