Don't Panic: Shanghai might be removing English from road signs

It's not exactly panic stations just yet, but Shanghai may soon see English and pinyin being removed from its road signs in the near future, as Shanghai's Road Administration Bureau collects information from an on-going survey on roads and road signs.

The survey, which is all in Chinese and includes other questions on road sign legibility, has a section on whether or not the city should keep translations on its signs to make the Chinese easier to see. There are options to either keep English only on street signs in certain areas, to keep the signs as they are or to remove English altogether.

'Of course we will keep the English-Chinese traffic signs around some special areas, such as the tourism spots, Central Business District areas and some transport hubs,' the bureau's division chief Wang stated, according to Shanghai Daily. And while it makes some sense that there should be no necessity for Shanghai to have English on its street signs, when you take into consideration that getting a driver's licence in Shanghai doesn't require knowledge of Chinese characters and Shanghai's considerable foreign population, the suggestion does seem rather hasty.

Nevertheless, the people of Shanghai - and traffic experts, of course - will soon decide on the status of the Latin alphabet on its city's traffic signs, with the poll closing at the end of this month. Might be a good idea to start brushing up on your hanyu then, folks.