To help officers overcome this reluctance and any other difficulties they may encounter regarding Chinese grammar, a number of experts within the Force are on hand and ready to offer assistance, including the Police Translators.

Chief Police Translator Lau Shat-kay recently told OffBeat that the Police Translator Section assists, and indeed encourages, Force members to use more written Chinese.

"Apart from routine jobs such as translations, we also offer consultation services, collect reference materials relating to the correct use of Chinese, organise training courses, compile glossaries and publish journals on translation-related items. We also give our fullest support to the Chinese-language working teams in different districts," said Mr Lau.

"Colleagues can always consult the Police Translators attached to their formation for advice on the standard format of Chinese documents, together with the correct use of Chinese words and sentence structure."

"We have organised courses in the past on a number of Force-related topics including a workshop on Chinese legal terminology relating to bilingual charge sheets, Chinese word processing and a computer software application course. A practical Chinese writing course is also available to all colleagues wishing to upgrade their standards of grammar. Additional courses will be organised if the demand is seen to be there," Mr Lau added.

To provide Force members with the most up-to-date reference materials, the Police Translator Section has dedicated considerable time and effort to the collection of reference books and the compilation of a variety of relevant glossaries.

"The Glossary of Terms Commonly Used in the Police Force provides colleagues with an easy-to-use reference tool which we plan to update in the near future," said Mr Lau.

"Our staff also assists other formations within the Force to promote the greater use of written Chinese. For example, we assisted the Information Technology Branch with the testing of Chinese hardware and software, as well as the inclusion of characters into the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set. We also advised the Detective Training School regarding the evaluation of their glossary of Cantonese terms, which acquaints officers with colloquial phrases they may come across when taking statements.

"To keep our staff and other Force colleagues up to date on the latest language developments and translation techniques we regularly publish a journal called Translink, which covers various topics including translation-related articles, instruction relating to the correct use of Putonghua, bilingual expressions and glossaries," added Mr Lau.

Mr Lau extended an open invitation to colleagues interested in visiting the library of the Police Translator Section, where officers may refer to a wide variety of reference materials.

"We recently launched a Police Translators web site which includes the online version of various glossaries, Translink, a list of books and other publications available in our library and other useful information.

"To access the homepage please visit POINT and then go to "Index/Police Translator Grade'," concluded Mr Lau.