Thanks for that! That’s exactly what I’m talking about. The change to 18 from 20 happened at the same time that the lower tax bracket changed from 6 to 5. That law is still in effect, and if you try to leave your company before the 183 days are up, you’ll find out about it. I’ve known a few that have changed their leave dates because of it; one was this year, so I know it is still in effect. I think a lot of us with ARPCs and JVRCs aren’t withheld at the higher amount because we’re deemed less of a flight risk, but at any time employers could change their minds.
That’s a shame. But most people outside of the translation industry do not understand that a professional translation is actually much cheaper than a non-professional translation. The price of an initial professional translation may be 30 - 50% more than that of a budget translation. But then the question is what happens to this budget translation? Well, if the client is totally clueless, they will:
- Use it directly without any thought (which is probably what has happened in Taiwan). What will probably happen is that all of these poor translations will have to be redone, costing hundreds or possibly thousands of times the original price (just think of all the road signs, street signs, and everything else that’s in English). In the worst case scenarios, bad translations may even result in deaths (just think of emergency situations and incorrect signs in hospitals), and millions of dollars or more of losses if certain legal/governmental policies have been translated incorrectly.
If the client has some sense, then they will have the translations proofread. Again, if they use native speakers of Chinese, it’s no good. If they use native speakers of English, then the translations may turn out alright. But the client will end up spending more when the proofreader tells them that the translation is no good and has to be redone. As a professional translator, about 80% of my work comes through translation. 20% comes through proofreading and editing. About 90% of the material I have been asked to proofread/edit, has been done by native speakers of Chinese. In most cases the translations are no better than Google translations. I point out the problems to the client and ask to be paid for translating, not proofreading.
The moral of the story is that it pays to not be so short-sighted.
By professional translator, I (well most translation agencies/professional bodies), would agree that this is typically someone with a masters, or decent related diploma, with at least three years of professional experience, and memberships with various institutes/translation associations.
Asians are short sighted in this regard… they will see the initial cost and jump on it. As for menus restaurant owners don’t think it matters so they google translate everything… so I will have a plate of Fuck the Duck until Exploded…
I will answer this completely honestly (SEE BELOW ALL CAPS):
- Do you feel satisfied about the English-language translation of Taiwan’s traffic signs, such as the names of streets and bus stops?
- Do you feel satisfied about the English-language translation of Taiwan’s shopping circles and scenic spots?
- Do you feel satisfied about the English-language translation of Taiwan government’s public facilities?
- Do you feel satisfied about the English-language transition of Taiwan’s shops (such as Menu in the restaurant)?
CONSIDERING THE AMOUNT OF ESL PEOPLE WORKING ON THIS ISLAND AND WITNESSING TW’S DESIRE TO BECOME A WORLD PLAYER WITH A ‘GLOBAL VIEW’ 1-4 ARE UTTERLY PATHETIC, AND CHABUDOISM AT ITS FINEST.
- Do you feel it is convenient to depart and arrive in Taiwan?
IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ARE GREAT, I HAVE AN E-PASS WITH MY APRC AND LOVE IT. WELL DONE!
- Are you satisfied with the governmental policies on the grants of permanent residency (ARC or PRC)?
FIRST OF ALL IT IS ‘APRC’ NOT ‘PRC’ (MORE CHABUDOISM?) AND I GOT IT WHEN YOU NEEDED 7 YEARS, NOW YOU NEED 5. I THINK THIS IS FAIR.
- Do you think Taiwan has provided the foreigners with enough work opportunities (or varieties of jobs)?
THE APRC COVERS THIS AND WHILE NOT IDEAL, IT IS MORE THAN FAIR.
- Do you think the taxes Taiwan government requests from the foreign workers are reasonable?
YES, FAIR.
- Do you feel satisfied with the designs of the bilingual courses for foreign students in Taiwanese academy?
IF YOU ARE FROM A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY IT MIGHT MEAN SOMETHING, BUT ANYONE FROM A DEVELOPED COUNTRY CANNOT PUT ANY WEIGHT BEHIND A TAIWANESE DEGREE, UNLESS OF COURSE IT IS A ASIA SPECIFIC STUDY OR MANDARIN LANGUAGE TRAINING.
- Do you feel satisfied with the design of Taiwan’s policies on the medical welfare for foreigners?
GENERALLY FAIR, THOUGH MANY DOCTORS ARE MORE INTERESTED IN GETTING YOU OUT THE DOOR THAN FINDING OUT WHAT IS WRONG.
Feedback and opinions are more than welcome.
If you wish to have your voice heard by the government, please do remember, your words do make a difference.
IT IS NICE TO SEE THE GOVERNMENT ENGAGE PEOPLE IN THIS MANNER
Thank you!!!
I am baffled as to how this happens. It goes beyond ChaBuDuo. I mean, nobody in their right mind would attempt to Google Translate “cottage pie” or “ropa vieja”. So what possesses some restaurant bosses to directly translate (say) 麻婆豆腐 as “pockmarked woman tofu” (which I have actually seen, on several occasions)? Do they seriously imagine the name is going to have any meaning in anything other than Chinese? Is it that difficult to use a bit of imagination and type (say) “辣味肉醬豆腐” into Google? At least you can guess it’ll come back with something halfway sensible, even if you speak no English at all.
That’s a shame. But most people outside of the translation industry do not understand that a professional translation is actually much cheaper than a non-professional translation. The price of an initial professional translation may be 30 - 50% more than that of a budget translation. But then the question is what happens to this budget translation? Well, if the client is totally clueless, they will:
- Use it directly without any thought (which is probably what has happened in Taiwan). What will probably happen is that all of these poor translations will have to be redone, costing hundreds or possibly thousands of times the original price (just think of all the road signs, street signs, and everything else that’s in English). In the worst case scenarios, bad translations may even result in deaths (just think of emergency situations and incorrect signs in hospitals), and millions of dollars or more of losses if certain legal/governmental policies have been translated incorrectly.
If the client has some sense, then they will have the translations proofread. Again, if they use native speakers of Chinese, it’s no good. If they use native speakers of English, then the translations may turn out alright. But the client will end up spending more when the proofreader tells them that the translation is no good and has to be redone. As a professional translator, about 80% of my work comes through translation. 20% comes through proofreading and editing. About 90% of the material I have been asked to proofread/edit, has been done by native speakers of Chinese. In most cases the translations are no better than Google translations. I point out the problems to the client and ask to be paid for translating, not proofreading.
The moral of the story is that it pays to not be so short-sighted.
By professional translator, I (well most translation agencies/professional bodies), would agree that this is typically someone with a masters, or decent related diploma, with at least three years of professional experience, and memberships with various institutes/translation associations.[/quote]
You forgot the most common scenario:
–Company puts out the money for a native speaker to translate their “company introduction”. Then the English translation is given to the boss’ nephew, who’s a sophomore at a university in central Taiwan and has had several years of English classes. He “fixes” the English so it is “right”. No one, including the boss’ secretary, who is actually from Britain and a native speaker of English, can change anything the nephew has done, so it goes up on the Web site just like that.
I wonder how many nephews are contributing to Taiwan’s overall morass of Engrish signage and brochurage?
Sadly, I don’t think the OP (who I assume works in/for the gov’t) is in any position to do anything about Taiwan’s “nephew problem”. Pretty much the same thing happens with the corporate website itself: boss’s niece is a bit artistic and did a course 10 years ago in HTML, so she’s let loose on the website to “save money”. Website ends up with lots of multicoloured clipart, broken links, and a completely unusable product catalog.
I suppose free business classes could help.
Go to Engrish.com and it’s full of it, but China is far worse and Taiwan actually tries to have passable translation…
Like “Stir Fried Cattle River with No Result”, “Black Mushroom Rape”, “Spread to Fuck Fruit”… and just today…
engrish.com/2013/08/three-te … -privates/
All of these examples are from China where cost cutting is king, so it’s not fair to use these to talk about Taiwan…
ironlady - What a waste of money! All done in the name of face, no doubt. Another thing that’s possibly worse, is native speakers of Chinese claiming to be native speakers of English, when they aren’t. You see a lot of this on ProZ.com, and I’m speaking from personal experience, as most of my old classmates, all Chinese and Taiwanese nationals are doing this. They all had decent English, approaching fluency, but no where near the level of a well educated native. Some even use full English names.
Most Taiwanese who are educated probably has better grammar than most native English speakers… but their tone may not be right. A lot of the crap translation we see aren’t even done by professionals. I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody got paid to do any of it, like it was done by their nephew or secretary. I mean how hard could it be to translate menu names?? It may not be perfect (it’s not easy sometimes) but instead of calling it “fuck the duck until exploded” they could at least invent a name that makes some sense, such as “Crispy Fried Duck”, “Fried rice noodles with beef”. Some stuff like “Danbing” should just be pinyin-ed if no suitable translation can be given… After all they do this with Indian foods.
Do these numpties not realise that “sandwich” and “toast” were originally English words? Funnily enough, if you type ‘三文治’ into Google it does actually come back with ‘sandwich’.
Grief. I’m amazed China ever managed to feed itself, never mind become a world power.
Or just go to the bloody Taiwanese Cuisine page on Wikipedia and copy and paste. People can be so 2001 in this country. 
I suspect they’ve been reading the book of swill instead.
Extremely. Forget Taiwanese foods – check out how many different translations you can get for foreign foods into Chinese. What’s the Chinese for hummus? How about smoothie? Ask five different translators and you could get five different responses.
There are complicated issues like 餅. What exactly defines a 餅 anyway? Why isn’t pizza considered a 餅? How would you even go about translating that character? And how would you differentiate between 蔥爪餅, 從油餅, and 宜蘭蔥餅?
A lot of amateur translators think that quotation marks are magical. You don’t know what is Buddha jump over wall? No problem, I write “Buddha jump over wall,” it’s ok!
I think all food names (within reason) should use Hanyu pinyin and provide explanations when possible. For 蛋餅, for example, egg bing or danbing are both good choices. If we can have sashimi, bratwurst, and kimchi, isn’t it about time we threw in some Chinese words, too?
Maybe because the chinese people thinks their culture is too inferior to use pinyin…
Yes, that’s a part of it. Notice how Japanese people never (or almost never) take English names, and its less common in Korea (I think) than in Taiwan.
The other problem is that local translators (and many inexperienced native English speakers) don’t understand the limits of English, what is acceptable and what is not, and so choose to take a safe route by translating everything and leaving no trace of its Chineseness. That’s how we end up with abominations like “Taiwanese hamburger” (刮包) and “Buddha jumps over the wall.” I would translate those as guabao and fotiaoqiang, personally, and if someone asked explain what they mean.
They might have better grammar than you, but not most educated native English speakers!
[quote=“Tiare”][quote=“Charlie Jack”]
I think Tiare may be referring to a tax rule that was published in 2008, and that came into effect in 2008-2009 (I’m not sure about the date on which it became effective). Or it may be a different rule, but if it is, it seems to have a similar effect to that of the old rule. The rule from 2008-2009 seemed to say that 20 percent of the foreign employee’s income could be withheld for the first 183 days, regardless of how long the foreigner had been in continuous residence in Taiwan. Supposedly a refund of the excess could be obtained later. I’ve never been subjected to the 20 or 18 percent withholding, and I don’t know if the rule has been amended or rescinded or repealed, or if a new rule has been published, or what have you.
[/quote]
Thanks for that! That’s exactly what I’m talking about. The change to 18 from 20 happened at the same time that the lower tax bracket changed from 6 to 5. That law is still in effect, and if you try to leave your company before the 183 days are up, you’ll find out about it. I’ve known a few that have changed their leave dates because of it; one was this year, so I know it is still in effect. I think a lot of us with ARPCs and JVRCs aren’t withheld at the higher amount because we’re deemed less of a flight risk, but at any time employers could change their minds.[/quote]
If you want to voice your complaint correctly then complain that short term residents (<183 days) are required to pay a higher tax rate than permanent residents. I can completely understand why the gov’t basically forces schools to withhold the 18% from foreigners regardless of how long they have been in Taiwan. First the company is on the hook if the foreigner goes home in the first six months of the year. Second is a discussion that I had with another teacher in May about taxes.
Him: So how do I get my tax refund for 2012?
Me: You take your signed end of contract paperwork and your flight info to the tax office and they can speed up the return (I don’t know the exact details).
Him: And they give me my refund there?
Me: I don’t know but you can ask them.
Him: What about my 2013 refund?
Me: You don’t get a refund. You paid 18% (OR 20%) because you lived here <183 for this tax year.
Him: Can I leave w/o paying?
Me: No. It was already deducted from your paycheck. you just need to officially file your taxes before you go.
Him: How much did I actually pay?
Me: I don’t know. Probably 30-40,000NT.
Him: Are you serious?
Me: Yes, but if you vacationed in Taiwan for another 1.5 months you would get almost all of that back.
Him: Are you serious?
The rule that basically requires schools to withhold 18% from your paycheck is fair since many teachers would not be able to come up with 30-40,000NT when leaving and would instead just skip out of the country leaving the tax unpaid. Is the 183 day rule fair? Should a part timer pay the same tax rate as a citizen or a full year resident? I dunno. It’s obnoxious having the 18% withheld but not exactly difficult to plan for and every summer I get a nice bonus (tax refund).
I wasn’t going to be mean and mention that it should have been “Most Taiwanese who are educated probably have better grammar…”, not “Most Taiwanese who are educated probably has better grammar…”, as this is just a forum, and it seems that English may not be first language of Taiwan Luthiers. No disrespect to Taiwan Luthiers though, if English is not your first language, then you seem to have already attained a near fluent level of English (in terms of writing). If you are a native speaker of English, who has just made a few unfortunate typos, then you have my apologies. I’ve also heard a lot of people saying the same thing, that most Taiwanese students have a better knowledge of English grammar than native speakers of English. But the truth is probably that they’ve had these grammatical terms drilled into their heads and can only do well in multiple choice test which which ask them to spot the gerund… the second conditional… or the present perfect. But that doesn’t mean they can write grammatically sound English. Even native speakers of Chinese with near perfect English will stumble again and again with the simplest of English grammatical items like the articles “a” and “the”.
The difference between being fluent and having a native command of a language, may seem small to non linguists, but in reality this gap could take decades to bridge, or just be altogether impossible. When you translate, you are normally expected to create something that reads like an authentic piece of writing. It needs to be grammatically flawless and comparable to that of a professional in the related field. So, if you’re doing a legal translation, you’re expected to be able to use all the relevant legalese, and so on.
:roflmao:
Don’t forget the “lah”, as in: it’s ok lah! Yeah, it’s not just quotation marks though, you often see parenthesis being used in the same way.