Engrish.com

[Trek]

You can waste hours here.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Q. What is Engrish?

A. Engrish can be simply defined as the humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product design.

Welcome to Engrish.com!
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[ladelfina]

Trek, yes, I can attest to the hours wasted. Fun, though!

 

[FUEGO]

All your base are belong to us

Somebody set up us the bomb

best evar.

 

[HFWR]

Another source of bemusement would be the tech manuals that come from Japanese vendors...

 

[SecondCor521]

I appreciate and enjoy this kind of humor.

But as someone who has spent some time and effort working on localizing an American product into other languages, let me just point out that our translations probably were similarly humorous and poor in numerous cases. Not to mention such technical embarrassments and errors as the text showing up in the wrong character set, in the wrong language altogether ("Swedish? I thought you said Finnish!"), or just being USA-centric and leaving stuff in English (It's easier for the company for the folks in the Czech Republic learn English rather than the company to fix the underlying technical problem).

Like I said, it's still funny, I only want to point out that looking foolish in other languages is not limited to the Chinese and Japanese people.

2Cor521

 

[ladelfina]

2Cor. I know.. I thought of that when I saw the example that seemed to be some kind of press-on lettering with some of the characters applied upside-down and/or backwards.

I wondered how many native English speakers could really do even that well with Chinese/Korean/Thai glyphs.

 

[Sarah in SC]

We pronounced the cyrillic letters on the beer bottles to the vast amusement of our Mongolian bartender as Optina, because that was sorta what it looked like. After the bartender replied that the beer was called Borgia, we ordered by pointing at the empty bottle to save future mortification.

The only cyrillic I can say I got right was yy means water, as it was on all the signs that said "put no tissue in toilet water".

 

[ladelfina]

Italian Engrish

I think this gives the Asians a run for their money.

Foto taken by a friend. His accompanying explanation:

IT IS A MESSAGE FOR ENGLISH SPEAKING PEOPLE ONLY.....
IN ITALIAN IT SOUNDS EXACTLY AS :"IN CASO DI NECESSITA' IL PULSANTE DI EMERGENZA E' DALL'ALTRA PARTE DELLA PORTA"
THE ENGLISH VERSION MAY BE NOT TOO ACCURATE BUT FOR SURE IT GIVES A SENSE OF TRUE EMERGENCY.

It's supposed to say, more or less: "In case of necessity/emergency, the emergency/alarm button is on the other side of this door."

 

[laurence]

All your base are belong to us

Somebody set up us the bomb

best evar.

You are on the way to destruction.

What you say !!

You have no chance to survive make your time.

LOL

 

[CitricAcid]

laurence beat me! I was going to say 'You have no chance to survive make your time' (best line in that intense dialogue)

But, I will go with:

Captain!
Take off every ZIG!
You know what you doing

 

[MikeD]

As Mentioned in the Joy of Cooking Cookbook

A sign at a mid-west restaurant said "Steaks cooked to your likeness."

I love that one.

Don't get me started on:
loser/looser
there/their/they're
affect/effect
overuse of the word "amazing"
any use of the word "various"

Using a range as a point, as in "Up to ten to fifteen dollars." Up to ten? Or up to fifteen?

Oh, how I could go on.

Mike D.

 

[poboy]

One of my favorites from engrish.com

 

[Notmuchlonger]

Main Screen turn on?


YouTube - All Your Base Are Belong To Us

 

[harley]

Using a range as a point, as in "Up to ten to fifteen dollars." Up to ten? Or up to fifteen?

Oh, how I could go on.

I constantly complain about ads that say "save up to 30% and more!" DW just tells me to shut up.

 

[harley]

Oh yeah, and Exasperate for Exacerbate. My boss used to say that 2 or 3 times a day. "That will just exasperate the problem".

 

[ladelfina]

Harley, the life of a pedant is a hard one; I can attest as much.

Back in the (waning) days of disco, there was a club that advertised constantly on the local radio stations, bragging about its "SUPERSONIC SOUND SYSTEM!!".

My favorite recent Engrish is a toss up between the animal vexing and (I'm leaning towards this one) the "get away from my bangolow.. I hate you" sign.

 

[Bestwifeever]

A grocery store chain near us advertised "semi-boneless" pork chops a few years ago, translated from the English to the English

 

[GoodSense]

The Spanish people I work with like to say they are "sailing the Internet." I think that's real cute!

 

[bright eyed]

oh, that's too funny! my friends and i love to read the stationary from korea & japan that have nonsensical engrish on it...usually something like, "happy day make me smile, have a banana...I love you"

 

[ladelfina]

GoodSense, yes, very cute! Italians say "I'm navigating" or the alternate "sto surfando" from the new verb "surfare" which they do "cliccando". They may also find themselves "chattando" or "linkando".

Also funny are phonetic compositions devised to engender an English phrase.. I've seen written near a cash register "Deng Chiu" or something similar.. (which you'd say "deng kiyu".."thank you"!). They have a hard time with "th".

Related NYT article on literary translations:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/b...8800&en=fa5e46f62b73463f&ei=5087 &oref=slogin

"Angry Raisins" by John Steinbeck!

 

[clifp]

When I was China, last fall, the government had announced they were hiring hundreds of native English speakers to walk through Beijing correcting the various chinglish signs.

As we observed countless times this was going to be huge task.

 

[Westernskies]

Learn Chinese in 5 minutes- (You MUST read them aloud)

ENGLISH................................................ CHINESE

That’s not right!........................................ Sum Ting Wong

Are you harboring a fugitive?.................... Hu Yu Hai Ding

See Me ASAP ...........................................Kum Hia Nao

Small Horse.............................................. Tai Ni Po Ni

Did you go to the beach? ...........................Wai Yu So Tan

I bumped into the coffee table ...................Ai Bang My Fu Kin Ni

You might consider a facelift ....................Chin Tu Fat

I thought you were on a diet ......................Wai Yu Mun Ching

This is a tow-away zone ...........................No Pah King

The meeting was rescheduled ..................Wai Yu Kum Nao

Staying out of sight ...................................Lei Ying Lo

He’s cleaning his automobile.................. Was Shing Ka

Your body odor is offensive ...................Yu Stin Ki Pu

Great! ......................................................Fu King Su Pa