Li Hao
LONGGANG District, home to the main Universiade venues and Athletes Village, has been racing against time to make itself a better place for English speakers.
The district government has set up 30 English corners in schools, parks and private companies, said Wen Yi, director of the Foreign Relations and Cooperation Department of the district s Universiade office.
To strengthen residents enthusiasm in learning and speaking English, we have designed a set of badges for the English corner, resembling frogs in different colors, We call them Wa-u, said Wen.
In addition, each resident was given a passport to record their attendance at the English corner. Each attendance would receive one seal on the passport and the people with a certain amount of seals would be given a Wa-u badge, said Wen.
More than 400 residents have taken part in a variety of English corner activities, said Wen.
The district will shoot a promotion video of the English corner, expected to be screened in the district s public places, according to Wen.
The district s English corner program is also part of Speak Shenzhen, a citywide foreign language speaking promotional campaign, which was officially launched by the city s foreign affairs office Aug. 12 last year.
The program aims at raising the overall level of foreign language ability among citizens in Shenzhen, which has been striving to become an international city.
Besides the English corner, the Longgang District Government has started correcting bad English used in signs, part of an ongoing citywide campaign.
There are still spelling mistakes and Chinglish in the district s public signs, said Wu Xuwen, a language expert from the Translators Association of Shenzhen (TAS).
Wu was one of the language experts organized by the foreign affairs office to tour Longgang District on Friday to inspect its English signs.
The inspection team visited supermarkets, Metro stations and hospitals in the district.
However, Wu said it was not necessary to translate all signs into English, because some would only make sense to Chinese people.
Cao Yajun, a professor from Shenzhen University, said Hong Kong should be a good example for Shenzhen in promoting English signs.
Shenzhen is supposedly an international city, but its use of English in public signs is awful, said Cao.
However, Carol Quinn, a British woman on Friday s inspection tour, said even though there were some mistakes in the English signs, it would not be the end of the world.
The most important thing for Shenzhen to achieve an impressive Universiade is people s warmth and enthusiasm, said Quinn, who has been living in Shenzhen for three years.
I m impressed by the city s amazing efforts to improve its English environment to help us to understand Shenzhen better, Quinn said.
