For Japan Rail, poor translations mean everything is an accident…
Posted on June 15th, 2008
Inside the JR Yamanote line trains, since around 2001 or so they’ve had state-of-the-art large LCD sign boards displaying comprehensive train information, news, and commercials. One of the info screens is for train delay information of Tokyo train lines.
But just what are the causes for those delays? Some lazy translator working for JR decided to translate most of the reasons as “accident.” You’d think they’d want to promote themselves as having fewer accidents, not more!
At least some of the translations are reasonable, like the one for crowding (see picture), which I could never imagine happening in America.
So many people see this information every day and the translations are so sloppy and easy to fix that it boggles my mind. Delays due to car inspection and signal trouble seem quite common, but English speaking riders will only see these as accidents. Why don’t we fix these mistakes? (Note: There are more reasons than those in the list below.)
| Japanese | Shock English | Correct English |
| 車内点検 | Accident | Car Inspection |
| 信号トラブル | Accident | Signal Trouble |
| 線路障害物 | Accident | Obstacle on Tracks |
| お客様混雑 | Crowding | Crowding |
| 人身事故 | Accident | Accident |
| 車両事故 | Accident | Accident |
| 集中工事 | Construction | Construction |
| 地震 | Earthquake | Earthquake |
Tags: accident, information, Japan Rail, JR, public, Trains and Mass Transit|電車、交通機関, yamanote
Filed under 公共空間, 電車、交通機関 |
3 Responses to “For Japan Rail, poor translations mean everything is an accident…”
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m Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 21:24You forgot one, 人身事故 means someone jumped in front of a train. Not just “accident”
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ShockEnglish Says:
May 14th, 2009 at 16:46Thanks. Actually I haven’t been riding the Yamanote line every day anymore, but when I rode it a little while ago, it looked like they had fixed many of the translations. They still weren’t perfect, but a lot better than before!!
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Eido Inoue Says:
August 9th, 2009 at 22:44Technically, 人身事故 {jinshin jiko} (literally “human accident”) means any kind of injury / accident relating to a human. It doesn’t necessarily mean suicide.
There’s a lot that can happen: people get brushed by the arriving train as they’re too close to the platform, a door shuts on a person only partially inside the train, a person passes out or faints while on the train, etc.
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