Signs #3

When I see odd signs and hilarious Engrish on my trips around the city a business proposal often comes to mind: I will become a travelling English merchant going door-to-door to business and companies selling grammar, punctuation and correct spelling from my magical carpet bag. Or I could be like a wonderful fairy-grammar mother who drops by to grant lexical wishes and restore a sense of normalcy to the signs and their English leaving a trail of glitter and confused Japanese people in my wake. But then I think, why would I want to do that? They're hilariously perfect just the way they are. No point messing with a good thing.

I want to live here just so I can give this address to people

Thanks dude but I'd rather not be your anything

A restaurant in Kobe. Is it still politically incorrect if the majority of people can't understand it?

Popular boyband Arashi dressed as pieces of popcorn. There are just. no. words...

Interlude: Engrish

This episode of Engrish comprises a random collection of nonsense from various places. I will seriously never tire of seeing what bakeries are prepared to get permanently printed on to their windows.

Roll chicken cow?! Why do we not have this magical animal in Ireland?!

A beer company's description of their beer.

Bakeries never learn...

A trip to Takamatsu is a trip into the Matrix!

And unfortunately lacking pictures are these other fine examples of Engrish from round and about:

"Ride on fuckin' age" This was printed on  an elderly gentleman's shopping bag.
"So Gut" On a t-shirt. No clue.
"I will become a cool adult in these clothes" Another t-shirt offender. Yes young man you certainly will.
"I looks for clover" T-shirt.
"I love hug smiles"  T-shirt.
"Curious stiff" T-shirt again. This one I love though. Imagine being so curious your body becomes rigid and you find yourself unable to move. Hilarious.

Signs/Engrish Mash-up (The Health and Beauty Edition)

Over the last while I've come across some amusing Japanese English that falls into what I suppose would be a health and beauty category? i.e. on shampoos, beauty products, signs outside hairdressers. To be honest I could walk down to the ¥100 shop (which actually charges ¥105! Liars!) and come back with a folder full of photographs of English blurbs on Japanese beauty products that were blatantly copied and pasted from Google translate. (That's if I didn't get caught taking the forbidden photographs and booted out of the shop.) Bad grammar aside though they make sense and the message they are trying to convey is always obvious. I'm not here to spitefully mock bad grammar and it is also very helpful in some cases to have the English description there so I can figure out exactly what I'm buying. In some cases though it just makes me laugh. And then I put them on the internet.

Is a hair manicure a thing? The more I look at this the more it sounds
like something you could possibly find at home... Strange nonetheless

Introducing my new shampoo: Horse Fat. Now featuring real pieces of horse!

Sick of painting those pesky nails of yours? Remove them!
 

 

"We always never forget a replay a greeting and cleaning" : your guess is as good as mine

Interlude: Engrish

This installment of Engrish is sponsored by grammatically incorrect signs decorating the bathrooms of Japan and providing me with much amusement whilst sitting on the can.

Please return a hadle down after passing a toilet (I know what they were trying to say. It doesn't prevent the mental image that pops into my head upon reading it of someone trying to shit a toilet though.)

And not forgetting t-shirt slogans here are some recently acquired gems:

Knee high slop lightly salted

I can feel good wind of a feeling

Moany things happen unlooked for (This is so true. Moany things do happen unlooked for don't they?)

It goes to mountain? Yes

California sub standard beach break with a tendency to close out

And here's one I spotted on a piece of stationary belonging to one of my students:

A small bear lives down the road from your house

It featured the popular bear character Rilakkuma looking all cute and non-threatening but I still think that it's a slightly ominous statement coming from a stationary company.

Just look at those empty, soulless eyes and that semi-sexy pose. You just know he's watching
you through the windows of your house when you're getting changed (source)

Interlude: Engrish

This episode of Engrish is brought to you by the Japanese t-shirt, a fashion staple and English student badly in need of some grammar lessons.

 

1) It's never mind sharing

2) Basterd, gimme shelter

3) Chirpy rush my fences

4) Let's advance without to having the will high, and giving it up please do not make the light of the mind manufacturing indefinetly

 

And number 5), the pièce de résistance and my personal favourite: Together, like dirt

It makes no sense and yet all the sense. You can't argue with this message because you can't understand it. Neither apparently did the man who wore it.

 

To be fair to the Japanese I have been informed that a lot of their clothes are imported from China. Where someone is clearly typing random words and sentences into Google translate and slapping the results across t-shirts. It makes for interesting reading while strolling down the shopping arcade I can tell you that much.

Signs #2

As I've noted before (here) signs in Japan are pretty interesting. And by interesting I of course mean adorable and hilarious really. I cannot think of one pharmacy in Ireland that would not be slightly embarrassed to have a poster of a smiling poo advertising constipation medicine in their window, or ESB Ireland using a dungarees outfitted, flying electric fairy-baby to warn children of the dangers of touching electrical wires. It just wouldn't happen. People in Japan have no such qualms. And far more active imaginations than graphic designers back home (or perhaps easier access to hallucenogenics?)

Park here and feel the wrath of my GIANT hand!

A poster warning not to litter in the area. Why he has an orange for a head I
could not tell you

This one's fairly obvious. It's the slightly malevolent look in the pigeon's eyes
and karate chop pose that makes me giggle every time. "Feed me or I'll f*ck you up!!"

A warning in Nara how not to treat the deer. It makes me think of attack options when you're playing Pokemon on the Gameboy. "Deergong! Use knock down, take that old bitch out!"

Umm.. This is where the aliens come to walk their horned children

This poor little fella got his hand trapped but he's still smiling. What a trooper!

Last but not least this articulate gem. Mmmm love me some combustible baked goods... Yummy!

I hope you have enjoyed the latest installment of Signs. This is Ciara Long, your reporter of all things random in Japan signing off for now. You stay classy... internet.

Interlude: Engrish

So I've noticed some oddly put together sentences over here.

On clothes:
Breath the ground
Mind tries turn me upside down contact
Do you punk?
Bullet my dimension

On menus:
French fries (plane or salty)

And the best one yet on a notebook:
The words you and me, extrememely cute, do you my feelings, my honey honey

They make me smile.

Fin.