confusing road signs to be corrected: MOTC
Posted by site admin on 31 Jan 2007 at 04:10 pm | Tagged as: Taiwan, signage
Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications is calling on the public to report confusing or unclear highway signs.
The ministry’s Institute of Transportation (Jiāotōngbù Yùnshū Yánjiūsuǒ) has set up a toll-free telephone line for people who want to report such signs. The number is 0800-231-900, extension 5. Or people can make submissions through the institute’s Web site (Mandarin only).
I doubt that the ministry can be convinced that the awkward typography and tiny lettering of the romanization on many signs are indeed errors that need correction. Still, it’s worth a try. But as for the use of Tongyong Pinyin….
Signs will be corrected within 15 days, according to the ministry.
sources:
- Public assistance sought to improve confusing road signs, CNA via the China Post, January 31, 2007
- Jiāotōngbù zhúbù gǎishàn lùbiāo — huānyíng tígōng jiànyán (交通部逐步改善路標 歡迎提供建言), Zhōngguǎng xīnwén wǎng (中廣新聞網), January 31, 2007
- 親和性圖形路標 駕駛不再霧煞煞, China Times, January 31, 2007
On a slightly related topic, there was a report in the WSJ Asia about Beijing trying to clean up its English signs. I haven’t been able to find it online but I thought you might like to know it’s out there, if you can get a copy of WSJ over in Taiwan. It’s a bit odd in that it takes a slightly critical tone and makes it sound like foreigners would prefer to keep bad English as a source of entertainment rather than have proper English.
JB: Thanks for the alert. The article you mentioned is here: Tired of Laughter, Beijing Gets Rid Of Bad Translations. It’s probably worth a post all by itself.