Lost in Translation: How Beach Safety Signs Endanger Non-English Speakers

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Sun, beach, and time off work sum up the holiday season for many Australians, yet it is one of the deadliest times of the year — especially for overseas-born beachgoers.

Around one in three of the at least 139 people who drowned in Australia last summer were born overseas, according to Australia’s Royal Life Saving Society, the nation’s leading water safety educator.

Between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day in 2024, nearly three people drowned each day on average, making the period particularly dangerous — especially for those less aware of beach safety.

“Individuals born overseas are five times more likely to drown while swimming. Over the past decade, people born overseas have represented over a third of all drownings,” a Life Saving Victoria spokesperson told SBS News.

“The core issue for Victoria’s multicultural communities is a lack of swimming and water safety skills and knowledge.”

A spokesperson has highlighted multiple factors that contribute to increased risks at beaches. These include limited access to safe swimming areas, language and cultural barriers, origins from landlocked regions, and an underlying fear of water.

Leading studies on this issue, Masaki Shibata, a lecturer in intercultural studies at Monash University, pointed out that how beach safety messages are conveyed plays a crucial role. He emphasized that the presentation on safety signs significantly impacts public understanding.

Beach safety signage is one tool used to improve knowledge and warn beachgoers of potential hazards, but studies show the signs often fail to effectively communicate the risks to non-English speakers.

A recent study from Monash University, in collaboration with Life Saving Victoria, found that only 14 per cent of Korean students in Australia understood what the red and yellow flags meant.

These safety signs are essential in informing beach visitors about constant and temporary dangers they might encounter, yet the message isn’t always clear. AAP photographer Dan Peled captures the typical scene of such warnings—a red flag and a “No swimming” sign perched on a windy beach with turbulent waves.

Red flag and “No swimming” danger sign on a windy beach with rough surf.

Shibata explained to SBS News, “The language can be somewhat complex. I think the color coding, in particular, can lead to some misunderstandings.” This suggests that simplifying language and improving visual cues on these signs could potentially mitigate the risks associated with misunderstanding safety warnings.

“The language that can be a little bit complicated … I guess that because of colour coding, there are some misunderstandings,” he told SBS News.

The research found that when ‘beach closed’ signs with red and yellow backgrounds were displayed, 80 per cent of participants saw the red as a high warning level.

Nearly half of the respondents said they would enter the water despite a dangerous current sign with a yellow background alongside images of people in the water.

A similar 2024 study of Japanese students found three in five had little understanding of safety flags and around 60 per cent had issues understanding warning terms.

Even Google Translate gets it ‘wrong’

Shibata said some commonly used terms, such as “rip current” or “shore dump”, were even unfamiliar to students in their own language.

“In other words, they don’t know the [word’s] existence,” he said.

“When you put the shore dump or shore break into Google Translate, at the moment, it actually comes out wrong.

“In Chinese and Korean, it comes out as a place to put rubbish on the shore.”

Experts warn that understanding phrases such as “rip current” — among the most common hazards on Australian beaches — is crucial for improving beach safety.

According to the Royal Life Saving Society, 45 people on average die from rip currents in Australia every year.

A Life Saving Victoria spokesperson said they “emphasise the importance of effective coastal safety signage in preventing aquatic incidents”.

“It’s important to note that signage is just one part of a broader, multidisciplinary drowning prevention approach that reduces drowning risk by addressing hazards, exposures, and vulnerabilities to protect individuals and communities.

“Life Saving Victoria has a dedicated multicultural department that delivers water safety activities daily throughout the year.”

Improving translatability

In recent years, there have been growing calls to improve beach warning signs for non-English speakers — and some changes have already been made.

For instance, Victoria’s Bass Coast Shire Council recently announced a trial of new coastal safety signage at high-risk locations, including Kilcunda Beach, Woolamai Beach and Forrest Caves.

The council has said the signage, developed by Life Saving Victoria, incorporates evidence-based design, multilingual messaging, and clear hazard warnings.

Shibata said that some of the terms should be “revised in English first” to make them more comprehensible to culturally and linguistically diverse communities (CALD).

“Let’s say, for example, ‘shore dump’ can be changed to ‘crushing waves’. Because shore is a location and dump is an action, but it doesn’t really capture waves … that’s why it’s a lot of different interpretations,” he said.

“So let’s put the wave there [in the phrase] … and then we know the dump can be misunderstood, so we can change it to crushing waves.

“It is important that the signs have to be very clear and very simple, very translatable,

But Shibata warns that no matter what the signs say, some people do not read them.

Beach education while studying English

Some initiatives to improve beach safety awareness for CALD communities begin before they even arrive in Australia.

Monash University, Surf Life Saving Australia, and the University of NSW Beach Safety Research Group created a reading exercise about beach safety for students preparing for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam.

Shibata said the exercise was created to “educate those who are not interested in water safety or who just ignore our message”.

“We developed the exercise for IELTS, but then incorporated beach safety information and rip currents, beach science and risky behaviour in Australian beaches,” he said.

“So even though they are not really interested, they can just study English with our material, but unconsciously learn about beach safety.”

Survey results found an improvement in participants’ knowledge after finishing the IELTS exercise, particularly in identifying rip currents, red and yellow flags, and beach signage terms.