Article for translators: Ten things you didn’t know about China

Ten things you didn’t know about China

By McElroy Translation Company,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA

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The first Chinese car you drive will likely be a Chery

In 2005, Chery (its English translation should have been “Cheery” but there was a mistake in the translation process and it was decided by the company to not correct the error) was upgraded to ISO/TS 16949:2002 production quality, the highest and strictest quality control system in the global auto industry. They also began working with Malcolm Bricklin’s company, Visionary Vehicles, hoping to be one of the first Chinese automobiles sold in the United States. The plan was to import five new car lines. Bricklin planned to have 250 dealers in the United States selling 250,000 cars a year by 2007. However, after 2 delays and various disagreements over finances and car design, the deal broke down. Instead, Chery is pursuing its own export plans and is designing a large array of cars for the American and European market and Chinese market.

en.wikipedia.org

Tencent is the name of the number one internet company in China.

No other Internet company in the world — not even Google — has achieved the kind of dominance in its home market that Tencent commands in China, where its all-in-one packaging of entertainment offerings and a mobile instant-messaging service, “QQ,” has reached more than 100 million users, or nearly 80 percent of the market.

theledger.com

China is an exporting juggernaut and has about $1 trillion in foreign reserves, most of which is used to buy U.S. debt, including $350 billion in U.S. T-bills.

China will soon create one of the world’s largest investment funds, with ramifications for global stock, bond and commodities markets and for how the U.S. finances its trade deficits.

inthesetimes.com | globalresearch.ca

By next year, cement consumed in China will amount to 44% of global demand.

China will remain the largest national consumer of cement in the world, accounting for close to half of global cement consumption in 2010.

cementamericas.com | marketresearch.com

The Year of the Pig will see an unprecedented number of births in China.

Pig years, which occur every 12 years, are considered auspicious. But the coming one, or so many believe, will be especially fortunate since it is not just a pig but a golden pig, the first in 60 or even 600 years, depending on which astrologer one consults. China’s state-owned media have carried numerous stories of gynecologists struggling to cope with unusual numbers of expectant women. Life Times, a weekly newspaper, quoted an official as saying that Beijing alone could see 170,000 births this year.

economist.com

Chinese citizens are among the fastest growing groups of tourists to destinations outside of their own country.
Chinese citizens were only freed by their government to travel for leisure in 1997, but by 2004, 29 million mainland Chinese citizens traveled abroad. Some reports estimate that Chinese tourists will number 115 million by 2020.

www.worldhum.com

China has the most rapidly growing thirst for “foreign” oil.
With 1.3 billion people, the People’s Republic of China is the world’s most populous country and the second largest oil consumer. A report by the International Energy Agency predicted that by 2030, Chinese oil imports will equal imports by the U.S. today. When world energy leaders gathered in Houston last week to dissect industry issues, their remarks were translated from English into only two other languages — Russian and Chinese.

www.iags.org | www.chinapost.com

Of the 20,000 new English words unofficially logged last year, up to 20 percent were “Chinglish. ”
Chinglish terms include “drinktea,” meaning closed, from the Mandarin Chinese for resting; and its opposite, “torunbusiness,” meaning open, from the Mandarin word for operating. An older example we all recognize: “Long time no see," a word-for-word Chinese-English translation, is now a standard English phrase.

www.post-gazette.com | news.xinhuanet.com

A Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, or KFC opens at the rate of a store a day in China.

Yum Brands, the world’s largest fast-food operator in terms of number of locations, is opening up one restaurant a day in China, with plans to add 400 restaurants this year.

www.chicagotribune.com

129 surnames represent 87 percent of all surnames in China.

This statistic was compiled as part of the reviving of an order of the Emperor many years ago to compile the 100 most popular surnames (or last, or family names) in China at the time. School children used to memorize them.

english.people.com | www.chinapage.com

* All links found in this article are meant to be points of departure, and for further informational purposes. If you have information that is different or even contradictory to these factoids, please tell us, and we will print it in next month’s E-Buzz.