Campaign to fix poorly translated public signs in Guiyang comes to end

In 2021, the Guiyang Foreign Affairs Office launched a campaign to fix poorly translated public signs in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province.

On the office's public WeChat account, a small applet was established to mobilize and encourage the public to register and participate in the campaign, wanting to improve and standardize the city's foreign language signs.

The office re-launched the campaign on Nov 28, 2022, and after three months, it has come to an end.

The campaign covered public English signs that related to culture, tourism, transportation, sports, medical and healthcare facilities, and government service throughout the city.

Through the active participation of residents, more than 300 signs were corrected, including those with mistranslations, omissions, and spelling, capitalization, and formatting mistakes.

As per the campaign plan, the public had to register for the campaign through the WeChat applet, and with each interaction, they got a certain amount of points. According to the points ranking, one first-prize, three second-prize and six third-prize winners were selected.

The Guiyang Foreign Affairs Office organizes a symposium for prize winners of the campaign to talk about the campaign. [Photo provided to guiyang.gov.cn]

The office invited a few of the winners to come together for a symposium on April 13, It was there that the winners were honored and given a platform to voice their suggestions and opinions about the campaign.

Participants agreed that public signs are very important to the language environment of the city. The campaign has improved everyone's sense of responsibility to participate in building a better city. It is also a valuable learning and practice opportunity.

The aforementioned applet is multipurpose and also provides a search function so that international friends and the public can search for more information related to public services. This includes information regarding transportation, tourism, culture and entertainment, sports, education, medical care, postal telecommunications, catering, accommodation, and business.

Moving forwards, plans are for the office to actively mobilize the public to participate in activities related to the campaign, optimize the city's business environment, and improve the open environment and business environment.