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Lost in the translation

Reading Time:5 minutes
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IN THE FIVE years Joe Magrath has been living in Hong Kong, he has had his share of 'English-free moments' - those times when the English language, even supplemented with pantomime antics, fails to get a point (undoubtedly urgent) across.

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Such moments seem particularly common in taxis, and one incident sticks in Mr Magrath's memory. 'I jumped into a taxi with a bunch of Western friends out near Ma On Shan,' he says. 'As soon as the driver heard us speak, he started pointing us towards the next taxi in the queue.'

Mr Magrath, a Canadian, and his friends ended up working their way down the taxi rank, and not until the fifth or sixth taxi could they find a driver able even to begin to understand their requested destination - despite it being a mere 10 minutes away and they having a map in hand.

'Can't imagine how a tourist would have felt,' he says.

More than 40 per cent of visitors to Hong Kong are not from the Greater China and need to communicate in English while here, according to the Tourism Board. So maintaining a high standard of English among workers who come into contact with tourists must be a priority. But little is being done to help taxi drivers with their English. And even less is being done to help restaurant workers. Long working hours make language study especially difficult. But there is also the ineffectiveness of self-learning materials and a lack of co-operation from employers.

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The Government is not ignoring the problem of workers' poor English. In February last year, it established a $50 million grant-incentive scheme, the Workplace English Campaign, to partially reimburse employees' expenses for language-course work and finance do-it-yourself learning materials. Little of this money has been disbursed so far - but perhaps that is fortunate, because the programme was hit by scandal earlier this month when the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) arrested 42 people for allegedly conspiring to make false claims for tuition subsidies. All have been released on bail while inquiries continue.

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