James Kirchner

Note: This appeared on the LINGUIST list recently. James Kirchner, who taught in the Western Czech Republic, wrote of the misconceptions about English held by the English teachers there, and asked for native-English (particularly British English) speakers' input. I thought that the summary might be of interest to TESL professionals and others.--Kristina

Czenglish (spojení anglických slov Czech a English) je anglický termín, jímž Don Sparling označil špatnou angličtinu, kterou používají někteří Češi. Charakteristické pro tzv. Czenglish jsou čechismy při překladu terminologie nebo ve větné skladbě (pořadí slov ve větě, předložkové vazby atd.).

By Michael Erard

The targeted offenses: if you are stolen, call the police at once. please omnivorously put the waste in garbage can. deformed man lavatory. For the past 18 months, teams of language police have been scouring Beijing on a mission to wipe out all such traces of bad English signage before the Olympics come to town in August. They're the type of goofy transgressions that we in the English homelands love to poke fun at, devoting entire Web sites to so-called Chinglish. (By the way, that last phrase means "handicapped bathroom.")