Airline websites - proofreading in English

I recently dropped off someone at the airport and checked the flight status of a certain airline based in Asia. Of course they have an English language section of their website with flight info, but I see a lot of proofreading errors and awkward phrases.

This airline has an English language customer service number. They ostensibly have native or expert English language speakers as employees who can proofread simple things like "time of arrive", run on sentences, or strange phrasing.

Maybe they use a software program to do the translation for their website.

I know online translators are ofen wrong, sometimes comical.

You are exactly right Crabby, I am 60 years old and gave up my flip phone for a stupid one recently and am learning how to text! The auto correct keeps changing my words and it's so hysterical what it comes up with sometimes that I send it anyway! They usually call me right away and tell me to quit drinking!

It was the following page:

http://us.ceair.com/muovc/newsitefront/aoc/aoc-manager!getFlightStatus.shtml

It won't have the flight info since that had to be keyed in. However, it shows stuff like "Security code not match". All it would take is one American employee to look over the text to clean it up.

You can look at a website like Korean Air. Even if their employees don't have perfect English language skills, you can sure tell that they made sure someone who did checked every last word.

I work in the headquarters of a big corporation myself (not an airline) but we have a multilingual webiste and brochures.

In the past we had professional translators do and check the languages. After a cost saving incentive we now have a low cost translation agnecy who probably use software rather than people and produce one howler after the other. Nobody knows how much busines this may be costing us, but its a directive coming from the top so we have to chew it.

cirdan said:

I work in the headquarters of a big corporation myself (not an airline) but we have a multilingual webiste and brochures.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how much business it's going to cost a company that generally competes on price. I suppose a lot of their passengers don't care. However, I can find some airlines where it's apparent they worked hard to make sure things looked right.

So I've been looking over the China Eastern website and noticed lots of awkward phrases. I suppose part of the problem is that the Chinese language doesn't really have the plural form. Parts of their website actually look like they've been thoroughly proofread. However, I see some odd phrasing as well as commas instead of periods.

"More aircrafts"

"Time of arrive"

"The above information may not the same as information at airport"

"Security code not match"

I've never flown China Eastern but virtually everything I've ever heard about Chinese airlines has been pretty negative. That being said, even the top Japanese airlines don't use American English or British English as we know it. It's not that it hasn't been checked and proofread; it's that they simply don't use English the same way we would use English. To them it looks perfectly fine as-is.

BCL said:

cirdan said:

I work in the headquarters of a big corporation myself (not an airline) but we have a multilingual webiste and brochures.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how much business it's going to cost a company that generally competes on price. I suppose a lot of their passengers don't care. However, I can find some airlines where it's apparently they worked hard to make sure things looked right.

So I've been looking over the China Eastern website and noticed lots of awkward phrases. I suppose part of the problem is that the Chinese language doesn't really have the plural form. Parts of their website actually look like they've been thoroughly proofread. However, I see some odd phrasing as well as commas instead of periods.

"More aircrafts"

"Time of arrive"

"The above information may not the same as information at airport"

"Security code not match"

Click to expand...

At least in those examples it is pretty clear what its meant, even if the grammar can be quibbled with.

I've received letters at work from Chinese customers in which they've sometimes written multi-page essays in which every word was perfect English but even after several readings and a lot of guesswork, I couldn't work out what precisely it was they wanted. I finally had to get someboedy in our Chinese office to get back to them to clarify.

I have the impression some (not all) Chinese consider it impolite to come to the point too quickly, especially if they want to say something negative without coming across as being negative, especially if they are complaining about a minor problem, and thus they start off by making very generalist and polite sweeping statements and its not always clear at what point this transitions to the actual issue they are trying to raise.

I've flown on several of those Asian airlines (AirAsia, Malaysian, Bagan Air, Bangkok Air, China Southern, China Eastern). It is always interesting, often amusing, to read their web-pages and signs in the airport. I was surprised to find English (or Engrish) on many signs in China.

I first enjoyed this web-site many years ago; I drop in regularly to see what's new: http://www.engrish.com/

Have fun browsing through the pics

Sometimes no words are necessary; taken while waiting for the bus to Guilin in Yangshuo:

alan_s said:

I've flown on several of those Asian airlines (AirAsia, Malaysian, Bagan Air, Bangkok Air, China Southern, China Eastern). It is always interesting, often amusing, to read their web-pages and signs in the airport. I was surprised to find English (or Engrish) on many signs in China.

Click to expand...

Air China seems to have the least number of such errors. I'm guessing they had someone go through every page, even if they might have missed something small.

Actually once I was on vacation in Shanghai at the airport and found a girl (with her father) who spoke perfect American English. I talked to them, and apparently she had never been to the US and was there to meet someone. It turns out she was going to a private international school and classes were conducted in English. However, I work with a lot of people from China or Taiwan, and there are varying levels of English language mastery. Most can't shake their accent but have mastered perfect grammar, while others still have difficulty.

Once our local tour guide said she was an English language major at her university. However, she had difficulty with certain words. We were trying talking about something random, and she kept on saying "frog" in reference to the weather. And eventually we figured that she was trying to say "fog". So I suppose it's a lot different learning a language academically and actually mastering it. It certainly sounds as if a lot of these grammar mistakes come from someone who may had academic but little real world training in the English language.