Street names in English translation: trend or error?
Posted by Pinyin Info on 05 Oct 2007 at 04:54 pm | Tagged as: Chinese characters, English, Taipei, Taiwan, pinyin, romanization, signage
Ah, Park Street: Taipei’s lovely tree-lined boulevard next to a wonderful oasis of well-manicured nature.
Nope.
Here, “park” refers to Nangang Software Park (Nángǎng Ruǎntǐ Yuánqū, 南港軟體園區), an area in eastern Taipei of new buildings housing mainly software-development and biomedical companies. The software park itself is a pretty nice place and looks fine; its surrounding area, however, is anything but green and leafy, comprising mainly dreary brick buildings and vacant lots.
But what’s odder than the name itself is that it appears in English rather than in the mix of Hanyu Pinyin (with StuPid, StuPid InTerCapITaLiZaTion) and English (e.g., St., Rd.) that has become standard in Taipei. Also odd is that at one end of the street the signs read “Park St,” but at the other end “YuanQu St.” This is a fairly new street name, as the software park is only a few years old.
The flash on my camera helps reveal that the part of the sign reading “YuanQu St.” is pasted on top of something else — quite possibly “Park St.”
I spent about 15 minutes today getting my phone call to the Taipei City Government transferred from one desk to another before I was able to speak with someone who knew what she was doing. She stated that the Park Street version is in error and would be corrected to Yuanqu Street.
I really wish I’d asked for her extension number, because I’m certain to be making similar calls in the future.
[...] News spots an English street sign. Is it an error or a [...]
In Pinyin, I definitely prefer Yuanqu Street to YuanQu Street, but why not Park Street or Yuanqu Jie? Why the mix?
Will
YuanQu St.: assumes that 台北市 will never have more than one 園區 or 院區.
Park St.: one would assume that was 公園路.
Jie: That would be China style. A no-no.
What is the best way to get to YuanQu St from Tamkang University Tamsui campus?
What is the best way to get to Yuanqu St from Tamkang University Tamsui campus?
That’s not the sort of thing I normally cover on this Web site. But OK, since it will give me a chance to revisit this topic and note that the signs that say “Park St.” have still not been changed. Typical. Also, I get to note that the spellings of “Tamsui” and “Tamkang” are not for the Mandarin names, which are, respectively, Dànshuǐ and Dànjiāng but rather for the Taiwanese ones (I’m guessing).
OK, for your directions:
1. Walk from the university to the Danshui MRT station (or maybe the school has a shuttle bus).
2. Take the MRT to Taipei Main Station, then transfer to the Banqiao-Nangang (”Ban-Nan”) line, taking that all the way to the terminal station of Kunyang.
3. Walk across the street to the south side and take a bus (no. 22 or 817) to Yuanqu Street. If you take a cab from Kunyang station it will cost about NT$100.
Total time: approx. 1 hour and 20 minutes.
[...] Posted by site admin on 22 Aug 2008 at 07:30 pm | Tagged as: Chinese, English, Mandarin, Taipei, Taiwan, romanization, signage As some of you may recall, last October I wrote about finding official signs for a Taipei street that used English rather than romanization (Street names in English translation: trend or error?). [...]