When English Isn’t Really English: Common Issues in Chinese-to-English Translation Documents

In today’s globalized market, many English-language technical manuals, product descriptions, and marketing materials are not originally written in English. Instead, they are often translated from Chinese — sometimes quickly, sometimes via machine translation, and often without sufficient linguistic or technical post-editing.

The result? Texts that look like English at first glance, but are unclear, or even misleading upon closer inspection.

In this article, we explore the most common issues found in English documents translated from Chinese — and what they mean for translators, reviewers, and end users.

1. Literal Translation of Structure (Word-for-Word English)

Chinese is structurally very different from English. When translated literally, it often produces English that is grammatically acceptable but unnatural or misleading.

Example:

  • Chinese: 方向盘智能座椅温控开关
  • English: Steering wheel intelligent seat temperature control switch

This is a direct mapping of Chinese word order. The result is structurally broken in English. What’s happening: Chinese tends to stack words. English requires restructuring, such as Steering wheel and seat heating control switch.

2. Wrong Word Choice Due to Character Ambiguity

Chinese characters often have multiple meanings, and choosing the wrong one leads to major semantic errors.

Example:

  • Chinese: 前挡加热
  • Wrong English: Front gear heating
  • Correct meaning: Front windshield heating

挡 (windshield) was confused with 档 (gear)

3. Over-Literal Technical Terms

Chinese technical language often uses generic words that must be interpreted based on context.

Example:

  • Chinese: 档
  • English: gear

But in user interface contexts:
➡ it actually means level / setting

So:

  • 1档 → can mean “1st gear” or “Level 1”

4. Misleading Everyday Words

Some Chinese terms are simple but misleading when translated directly.

Example:

  • Chinese: 余量低
  • English: Low margin

But:

  • 余量 = remaining amount
  • not business “margin”

Correct:

➡ English: Low level / Low remaining amount

5. Incorrect Use of “Open” and “Close”

A very common issue:

  • Chinese: 开启 / 关闭
  • English: open / close

But in user interface context:

Correct:

➡ English: on / off, enable / disable

6. Formatting issues

Formatting in Chinese documents often breaks because the characters are “square” and take up more digital space than Latin letters. This leads to random gaps between words and broken sentences when you open the file in standard programs like Word.

Because Chinese doesn’t use spaces between words, the software often gets confused about where to end a line, resulting in punctuation marks that end up at the very start of a new line or text that looks “stretched” across the page.

How we deal with these documents:

  1. Access to the Original: If possible, we consult the Chinese source. Even if the translators don’t speak Chinese, they can use AI tools to cross-reference the original intent.
  2. Transcreation over Translation: We don’t just translate the English words. We look at the intent of the instruction and rewrite it so it makes sense in the target language. The subject matter expertise is important at this stage.

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