The Jilong City Government marked Children’s Day on Tuesday by awarding certificates of merit to a number of elementary school students.

The English on the certificates read:

Congratulate you being a model student. Studying is the way to success. effort is the base of harvest. You can get this honor because of diligence, enthusiasm and politeness. We are pround of you and hope you will keep working hard to devote to the society in the future.

Of course people noticed the mistakes. A newspaper pounced on the story and listed what it said were all of the errors. A revised version, after the newspaper’s corrections, would yield:

Congratulates you on being a model student. Studying is the way to success. Effort is the base of harvest. You earn your honor because of diligence, enthusiasm and politeness. We are proud of you and hope you will keep working hard to devote to the society in the future.

This, of course, is a pathetically poor “correction.” But that didn’t stop other news outlets from repeating this.

Keelung’s Dong Sing [Dongxin] Elementary School, whose teachers were responsible for the English text on the certificates, admitted that the whole process had been very rushed and that there had been no proofreading of the certificates.

The Keelung City Government also said it would recall all of the certificates and would reissue a revised version as soon as possible.

sources:

• City to recall certificates due to English errors, Taiwan News, April 7, 2006
• Ji?ngzhuàng Y?ngwén quán cuò — J?lóng Shì-f??cài?Y?ngwén (????????????????), April 6, 2006
• J?lóng Shìzhèngf? ji?ngzhuàng cài Y?ngwén? 5 jù[zi] quán cuò?ji?o’ào proud p?nchéng pround (???????????5??????proud??pround), April 6, 2006