Comments on: No personal handy telephone inside

By: Emily Tang

Emily Tang — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:17:41 +0000

Yea I remember it from when I was living in Taiwan. I’m not sure if they still got it but just kind of like a phone but like people said, it’s cheaper for those who can’t have yearly plans and what not. Interesting though, thanks for posting!

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:27:30 +0000

In German we call cellphones das Handi.

By: trey

trey — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:18:04 +0000

Xiaolingtong (that’s all I’ve ever heard it called in China) is still thriving in China due to the low cost of service. It doesn’t have the frills that mainstream cell service does, but… when you need to talk, why not talk for much less (it’s a shame other countries don’t adopt this cheaper technology- at least for heavily populated areas).

By: richard

richard — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 00:06:44 +0000

If i’m not mistaken, PHS is still used in Japan, for some low cost cell phone plans.

By: Pam

Pam — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:13:45 +0000

Maybe it’s an old sign or the person who translated used an older dictionary. The PHS phones were some of the first mobile phones available in Japan. I think it was sort of like the Sony Beta (as in Beta versus VHS) version of cellphone technology.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:11:15 +0000

What you say makes sense Henry. Maybe they wanted to use ‘handy’ but put in ‘personal’ since others might not know what they’re talking about. I could see a sign in another country using a English as the second language saying “mobile cellphone” since mobile is used in many countries but cellphone is used in the U.S. a lot.

By: henry

henry — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 05:57:09 +0000

Well ‘handy’ is German for mobile phone. Perhaps they tried to include as many translations of mobile as they could?