Originally Posted by
username
Native Mandarin speaker here.
It is funny that I was looking at the C menu on PVG->LAX and thought some HK person must have done it
I find the TPE-NRT Chinese menu pretty decently done though.
Are you saying for HKG flights, CX got it wrong and everyone else got it right? (I might be too jetlagged to read your sentence correctly.) Whose Chinese Traditional writing would CX/KA/BR/CI/GE use for flights between HKG/MFM and TPE/KHH
I doubt the UA script says YOU PEOPLE, unless Ross Perot wrote it
I too have been really surprised by the poor Mandarin from the UA flight attendants in general. My experience is mostly on UA835/836. Sometimes the announcements are almost impossible to understand, like someone just used RosettaStone for a couple months, with heavy accent and improper tones.
It is strange, because sometimes they have FA's on board who are clearly native-level speakers, but the one making the announcement is terrible.
Another issue is that they often don't have the mandarin-speaking FA available to serve Chinese passengers. More than once during meal service, I have had to translate for Chinese passengers sitting next to me when the FA comes down the aisle and barks "chicken or beef" to a Chinese person who can't speak any English and doesn't know how to reply.
As for the simplified/traditional characters, I have to disagree and say that using 冰淇淋 and 沙拉 is just fine. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that any person born in Taiwan/HK/Mainland will understand that it means ice cream and salad, and UA has chosen to go with simplified characters to cater to the huge and growing Mainland market.