Beijing Reads the Writing on the Wall

English-speaking visitors to Beijing have seen the city's confusing, sometimes delightful bilingual signs that mangle the English language.

Who could resist the message in the Forbidden City that tells tourists: ''Don't Fall Down" or the enigmatic emergency advice to ''Being Urgent Call 110 Quickly?''

And who would not want to eat at the restaurants serving: ''Western Food You can Actually Eat'' or the ''Most Delecticide Food in Beijing.''

Such delights are now threatened, however, because the Beijing Municipal Government is stepping up its efforts to avoid errors and improve consistency by issuing new standards for bilingual signs used in and by its transportation network or at tourist and cultural sites.

The effort to improve standards reflects Beijing's determination to use the 2008 Olympics to burnish its reputation as a modern, cosmopolitan city.

Authorities had already acted on at least half of 200 or so problem signs reported to the city's Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Programme Office since May, said office head Liu Yang.

The languages office was preparing the new standards as part of a citywide campaign to clean up public signage before the end of 2007, Liu said.

While the languages office has come up with solutions for some thorny issues such as how to translate the names of bridges on Beijing's ring roads, it could prove hard to eliminate more basic linguistic errors.