What makes a sentence clear? The answer lies in the words we choose and the way we order words in sentences. We read sentences more rapidly and understand their contents clearly when sentences have several characteristics: active voice, a clear-cut actor as the subject and an action verb. Writers should also ensure that subjects and verbs occur close together in sentences and that readers encounter subjects and verbs relatively close to the beginnings of sentences.

Many signs in urban areas are bilingual in Chinese and English. It cannot escape the notice of even the most casual bilingual observer that many such signs are woefully (and sometimes hilariously) mistranslated. Mistakes can result from wrong segmentation, wrong word choice, wrong grammar, or inappropriate style, which is particularly important in Chinese. Mistakes can also result from missing crucial information or lack of understanding of English. There are also the ‘innovative analogies’, which give rise to non-existent English words. Also frequently observed are inconsistencies, wavering between the two strategies of pinyin transliteration and meaning translation. The inclusion of mistranslated signs can be pedagogically useful in more than one way. Studying mistranslated signs is an exercise in contrastive analysis. Through detailed analysis of the causes of the mistakes, such signs can be used as negative examples in the teaching of both Chinese and English. They can also be useful to the study and practice of translation.