One of the hilarious thing about traveling to Asia (and Japan in particular) is the enjoyment of the many poor English translations on display. And it’s not just in places you’d expect, like maps and menus. It’s also on shirts and mugs and various other products.
For examples of the hilarity, I give you Engrish.com
Nice, eh? Wouldn’t want the other person’s feelings to be bad. How about a menu?
I have no idea what “Piling match of cheese” is, but I’m quite sure I don’t want the French flies. When we were in Japan, we encountered “Scent of garlic extinction” on a menu. Decided not to order it.
And then there’s just the confusing…
Men’s Retreat?
Not to harp on the Japanese (actually not all these are from Japan) too much, because I’ve always wondered if about half the kanji tattoos you see on shoulders actually say, “I’m a smelly barbarian.”
Anyhow, hopefully I’ve caused you to lose some time browsing the hilarity. It’s my gift to you.
August 19th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I am HIGHLY offended.
And when I say “highly offended”, I mean I’ve been laughing thru this WHOLE blog post!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Engrish.com
Seth replied:
August 19th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I was going for DEEPLY offended, but I’ll settle for “highly.”
August 20th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I don’t think it’s only limited to Japan.
I’m not Japanese and I still talk like that after living many years in the US.
Seth replied:
August 20th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Hey Yonas!!! For the record, I’d never accuse you of using Engrish…
Plus, it’s not really about accents, it’s more about the “Warning: Blade Extremely Sharp. Please Keep Out of Children” kind of thing. I don’t hear you doing much of that.
And about the “r” thing (Ressons), it’s really our fault for having an extra consonant sound in English. Who needs it? Or the “th” sound, for that matter?
August 20th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Ah yeah, the ‘th’ sounds. If I’m really really extremely tired, or super duper excited, I tend to pronounce it like a ‘d’(but not as bad as my Indian counterparts though).
I never have problems with ‘r’ by the way (although I used to totally hate the word “irregular”