Nooo....Not the Troubles!

[tonypep]

On this Friday lets bear in mind that sometimes trying to hard is not always a good thing.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Too funny!

I was involved in competitive table tennis in college. When we would re-cover our blades with new rubber, we were always amazed and entertained with the comical translations on the packaging. Japan was (and is) a hot spot for table tennis and most of the equipment came from them in those days.

Engrish apparently contains the superb difficulty on the correction grammars.

[Gilligan]

Having a chinese office manager we laugh at this stuff quite often.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

Having a chinese office manager we laugh at this stuff quite often.

Don't you think this whole "left to right", "top to bottom" reading and writing deal we have is part of their difficulties? Also, our Engrish "rules" are pretty bendable, charitably speaking.

I've known for most of my life that Japanese study English during most or all of their formal education...yet when they get out of school we can barely understand them. We had a foreign exchange student when our kids were small, and he really struggled to communicate with us. (Comical at times) Nice kid though.

But I'd have ZERO chance of ordering a noodle or rice anywhere in the Orient.

[blue moon]

Having a chinese office manager we laugh at this stuff quite often.

Don't you think this whole "left to right", "top to bottom" reading and writing deal we have is part of their difficulties? Also, our Engrish "rules" are pretty bendable, charitably speaking.

I've known for most of my life that Japanese study English during most or all of their formal education...yet when they get out of school we can barely understand them. We had a foreign exchange student when our kids were small, and he really struggled to communicate with us. (Comical at times) Nice kid though.

But I'd have ZERO chance of ordering a noodle or rice anywhere in the Orient.

their sentence/grammar structure (and thus communicating) is based on completely different ideas from ours. Latin and Greek are a foundation for many Western languages and while the actual words are different, it is just a matter of translating the word from one language to another and then substituting it. While this would not get you very far, it could actually provide some rudimentary conversation.

Far East languages are completely different as they communicate the concepts on different principles that don't really translate to our way of thinking very well.

pierre

[Gilligan]

Oh yes, English is a TERRIBLE language.

Her parents have her either write everything or at least go through and fix everything they do.  They are professionals but struggle to work with the english language and they have been in the US for 30 years!

[Frog]

Too funny!

I was involved in competitive table tennis in college. When we would re-cover our blades with new rubber, we were always amazed and entertained with the comical translations on the packaging.

My first 1961 Honda came with an owner's manual that was a hoot!