http://badcharacters.com/bad Bad Names, Careless Translations, Dumb Tattoos Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:41:35 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It is bad enough that Chinese-speaking citizens cannot always get ballots in their language. It is worse that they must contend with poorly translated election materials. But it is incomprehensible that translated ballots would list Democrats as Republicans and Republicans as Democrats! Yet that is exactly what happened in the November ... http://badcharacters.com/bad/2006/10/02/is-a-chinese-republican-a-democrat-in-new-york-city/ It's very easy to get tattoo symbols from books or the Internet. Whether they are correct or appropriate is another question. We feel that people who sell tattoo art without providing warnings are just out to make a quick buck and don't care about you. http://badcharacters.com/bad/2006/08/27/dumb-tattoos-that-embrass-wearers-forever/ Sometimes bad Chinese names are just comical, but other times they can be downright offensive to the very customers you are trying to reach. Careless translations send the message that you don't really care about your customers. If you don't care about them, why should they care about you? http://badcharacters.com/bad/2006/08/27/careless-translations-that-hurt-chinese-customers-feelings/ Because China will soon be the biggest consumer market, many businesses are looking to add potential customers by marketing their business and services there. In trying to cut costs, companies sometimes hire uncertified people to translate their business name. Not a wise choice in the business world. Bad Chinese names ... http://badcharacters.com/bad/2006/08/27/test/ We have seen so many unfortunate cases of people getting embarrassing permanent symbols on their bodies. We obviously have no control over how our characters will be used, but we strongly discourage customers from having them tattooed. See the link below for issues related to tattooing Chinese symbols. http://goodcharacters.com/a-word-about-tattoos.html http://badcharacters.com/bad/2004/08/17/a-word-about-tattoos/ Toyota announced in June 2004 that it was updating the Chinese pinyin of the name of its luxury model Lexus from the well-known Ling-Zhi to the new Lei-Ke-Sa-Si. Many wondered why. The new name Lei-Ke-Sa-Si, on the other hand, hints at no nobility, speed, or luxury. Instead it shares two characters ... http://badcharacters.com/bad/2004/07/05/thunder-overcomes-sars/ Nissan's Bluebird (sedan) is translated as Lan-Niao in Chinese. In Mandarin, lan means blue and niao means bird-no problem. However, the reading of the characters for lan niao in the Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese) is lan jiao, which also sounds like the word for male genitals. It's rather complicated, but although blue ... http://badcharacters.com/bad/2004/04/01/nissan-bluebird/