Engrish, Please

[gmat]

As I notice Engrish or misspelling, especially related to trains, I'll post it here.

 

Noted at the Shinjuku Station West Exit;

 

 

 

All of us have done boners like this at one time or another. But it is interesting. I thought it said adobe until I took a closer look.

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[cteno4]

They made the sign with illustrator and used the spell check.

 

Jeff

[westfalen]

I always look at engrish on signs this way. Imagine you are an English speaking signwriter with little knowledge of Japanese and a client gave you a piece of paper with some Japanese writing on it and instructed you to make a sign with it. Would you notice if you got a character back to front or left out, or added, a brush stroke here and there. I notice engrish signs don't seem as common these days, my theory is that with being done on computers there is less chance for making errors than with doing it by hand with a piece of paper to copy from.

 

It hasn't stopped the Japanese practise of seemingly making up sentences and slogans out of words that make absolutely no sense together though.

 

My favorite isn't from Japan but this one I saw in a Chinese railway station.

[Martijn Meerts]

At least they try, which is more than can be said about many other countries :)

[keitaro]

heres 1 i have. I tried digging up my best one but failed.

 

It went something along the lines of

 

the toilet gets down in an open space to the left of a door it was in a temple at kyoto. 

[The_Ghan]

Well,

 

My contribution isn't from Japan either ... in fact, mine is a McDonalds sign just outside Yass, near Canberra in the ACT, Australia....

[KenS]

At least they try, which is more than can be said about many other countries :)

 

I think that's a good point.  I'm constantly surprised by all the English-lauguage signs I see in photos of Japan, and they deserve credit for trying to be open. Some of it is likely just use of the exotic as a marketing technique (the way French often is used in America), but that doesn't really explain things like the sign on the gas station Grant posted recently advertising a car wash. Also, it's likely a very a small percentage that go badly wrong, but those are the ones that get the attention.

 

That said, I enjoy seeing posts about bad English (by Japanese or anyone else).  English is a deceptively simple language on the surface, but with lots of ways to say things you didn't mean, which can trip up even native speakers.  Computer-driven translation has only made the old "look up words in a dictionary and stick them together" errors even more common, and more likely to be used without checking them with someone.

[westfalen]

Here are some I found in taiwan. The last one isn't concerned with railways but it's nice to know what to expect when tramping through the forest.

[cteno4]

in my first trip to japan in 1984, i was very hot and sweaty one day down near imbusku somewhere and had a long train ride that evening back to my hotel so i grabbed a cheap tee shirt with interesting brushed character writing on it so i would be a little more fresh on the train for everyone's sake.

 

a few years later i was at my parents doing something in the yard and the next door neighbor, who is japanese, kept looking at me sort of funny, so i went over to see what was up (i grew up with him, he was a master japanese chef so i was raised with really nice japanese food!) and he said he was trying to read the shirt as he couldnt quite figure it out. so i spread it out so he could make sure of what he was seeing. he said it translated to something like "love small things but kill them". we figured it was one of those slang phrases that was the retranslation a couple of times of something punk rock which was big at that time and in japan (lots of spiked hair).

 

cheers

 

jeff

[traindork]

I got a digital frame a few years ago that had really horrible engrish instructions. The last battery charger I got also didn't do too well.

On the other hand, every time I see an American with a Japanese character tatoo I wonder if it really means what they think it means.

[The_Ghan]

.... and my favourite Thai sign ... Mrs_Ghan will kill me ...

[westfalen]

Back to Japan, in 1994 the 'platform operations office' sign at Miyakonojo station in Kyhushu not only had incorrect spelling but was different on each side.

 

On the other sign at Unazuki Onsen, the starting off place for the Kurobe Gorge, someone realised public was spelt wrong and covered up the mistake, but not only did they not correct it, they didn't look up lavatory in their English dictionary either.

 

While you're in China you can buy some peanuts. Yes, the word I covered up is what you think it is.