I loved when I visit Hotels around the World and see signs (in non English countries) that probably seem funny to the Average English speaking tourist here is some of them I have seen around the world.
(Japan)
'The manager has personally tasted your water'
<Basically is means Water is safe to drink>
(China)
'West food' (on a menu)
<Western Foods>
I can remember the others but if you have some post them!!! :)
(Vancouver)
"Standees must be behind the red line."
<On a bus: don't stand in front of the red line.>
The following are not actually foreign English but rather just "double entendre" statements.
Sign at a brewery:
"Our brewmaster personally passes all our water himself"
TV news item on a city hall meeting:
"Councillors say that if the sewage problem gets much worse they'll step right in."
Newspaper report on an outdoor political meeting:
"The wind picked up rather suddenly, sending the Minister's notes for his speech and other rubbish flying across the grass"
Somewhere in my apartment I have a list of just such erroneous translations. The only one I recall was a sign in a French hotel: "Leave your values at the front desk."
engrish.com has plenty of hilarious "Lost in Translation" signs.
George, I'm going to sue you for any internal damage I incur from reading too much in engrish.com!
My favorite so far is the menu item in a Chinese restaurant (always a good source of interesting translations): "Deep fried & Look like Squirrel" (Engrish from Other Countries).
That tops my favorite for years, a dish that was served in a Chinese restaurant in NY, where the word "flavor" was consistently spelled "flavver": "Fish lips with duck flavver sauce."
I've read so many funny translations INTO English over the years, but I haven't seen a collection of funny translations from English into other languages. Does anyone know of any websites that have them?
I guess "flavver" struck me as funny because it's so close to "slavver."
Back in the late 1980's when students and buisinessmen from Mainland China were first coming to the United States, I remember talking briefly with a visiting Chinese man. He wanted to know what bus would take him to Sea-Tac Airport but I also remeber him saying that he was from China and that "I STAY WITH AMERICAN HOUSE." What he really meant to say was: "I'M STAYING WITH AN AMERICAN FAMILY."
This is an example of what is known in linguistics as "intereference" when someone interjects some of the forms and syntax of their own language into a foreign language. Most people do this when they first start to speak a foreign language. Learning how to say something entirely according to the grammatical rules other the other language usually takes about five to ten years. In both Chinese and Vietnamese the words for "house" can also mean "family" in certain contexts, unlike English.
grammatical rules other the other language > grammatical rules OF the other language.
It's too bad that all translations of menus, advertisements, etc., can't have a first translation by a speaker of the source language, and then a going-over by a speaker of the target language. (But then a lot of humor in the world would be lost.) When I lived in a neighborhood where most of the food stores had Chinese-born owners, I often told someone who worked in the store about the mistakes on their signs and how they should be written, and the signs would actually get rewritten correctly.
Another similarly interesting phenomena is when ESL students make funny mistakes. One student of mine has recently translated: "fine worm.
O no" instead of "what a nice warm weather today, isn't it?' :)))