HAIKOU /China/, June 15. /TASS/. The organizers of a campaign aimed at correcting errors in foreign language public signs in Sanya city, southern Chinese province of Hainan, have received nearly 1.3 thousand messages pointing out translation mistakes in the last three months. This is reported by the local news resource Xin Hainan.
The campaign was launched by the press office of the Publicity Department of CPC Hainan Provincial Committee on March 14 this year and was widely supported by the public. Residents, tourists, students, professors and foreigners living in Sanya sent in their comments and suggestions for correcting various mistakes and inaccuracies.
People could do this through a special application on their smartphone. In order to inform the organizers about the error, the only thing they had to do was to take a photo of the signpost or signboard, upload it to the program and point out the inaccuracy in the translation. Users have viewed the content of the app more than 23,000 times over the course of the campaign.
To make the process of searching for errors more entertaining, the organizers of the campaign awarded points for each time a user entered the program or sent a message. At the end, there were winners, who shared the first three places. The first place winner received a Huawei smart watch worth 999 yuan ($148). Three more people in second place also won smart watches from the same company, but for 799 yuan ($118). The eight people in third place received Huawei cell phones for 349 yuan ($51).
Foreign volunteers, as well as university professors, were widely recruited to search for inaccurately translated street names, stores, restaurants, landmarks and other objects. The campaign was aimed at improving the international image of this Chinese resort city and internationalizing the business environment, which should help promote the project to build a free trade port in Hainan.