[bohadi]

>What's really screwy is the government has replaced most of the English translation on street signs from a literal translation to phonetic translation of the mandarin sound.

I don't think this is a fair take for a couple of reasons.

Mandarin is unlike other languages in that it's written form is famously ideographic. Phonetic translation is all that is done in any pair {L, M}. I assure you there is no such thing as a literal translation in any language.

Secondly, english as a global lingua franca is not a given and we in the anglosphere ought to be gracious in it's modern historical role, lest it decline (this is an exact mirror of dollar reserve privilege). Your statement reads as "be more accommodating for me". But through the prism of good manners it smacks of liberal entitlement.

>There is 0 reason to learn

hoo boy, i don't get paid enough for this... carry on

[jamesaurichs]

English IS the global lingua franca TODAY, used by most travelers to navigate through an unknown environment. if the signs in China are not translated into English TODAY, then there's no reason to go there TODAY.

[lstamour]

Honestly tho, as long as the street signs have English characters on them and I can find them and I can match them to Google Maps, I’m good. Compare with the UK where all the street signs are in English but I can never find them! (They’re often attached to buildings rather than anywhere useful…)

[yongjik]

> if the signs in China are not translated into English TODAY

Could you give me an example? I just Googled "beijing airport sign" and everything seems translated as expected, e.g., Gates, Beijing Capital Airport, International Departure, Drinking Water, etc.

I assume you don't mean you want Beijing written as "North Capital"?

[MissingAFew]

No reason at all?

[parineum]

I'm confused at what you think isn't a fair take. It is pretty screwy to replace existing English translation (useful to people who speak English) with phonetic transcriptions of Chinese words into Latin characters (useful to... who?). Sounds dumb to me.

> Mandarin is unlike other languages in that it's written form is famously ideographic. Phonetic translation is all that is done in any pair {L, M}. I assure you there is no such thing as a literal translation in any language.

There's no Mandarin/English translation for a "STOP" sign? I expect there is such a thing as a literal translation for most short instructions, the type of which you might see on a sign, for instance.

[lozenge]

They're talking about street names specifically, not traffic signs. What's the point in having a street name that none of the locals know because they know it by a completely different name?

Btw, based on Wikipedia, China uses symbols for traffic signs like Russia and Europe. US and Canada are the exceptions who use text and only a small few symbols.

[laserdancepony]

English is the lingua franca of planet earth today, and will be in the foreseeable future. No matter what you think.