photo by author, 31 Dec 2008
"Pasco Special Selection; PASCO’s special selection will make all people who are thinkining of their health, happy with the most delicious taste."
photo by author, 2 Jan 2009
"Welcome to Sakazen Ikebukuro B1F POWER SALE"
photo by author, 13 Jan 2009
"190m To Summit Observatio Deck"
These uses of English aren't really wrong, but they aren't exactly right either. They are functional, but peculiarity and errors like these are very common. For some reason using natural sounding or correct English just doesn’t seem to be important. This perplexed me, so I talked to a Japanese friend recently and she explained it – English is just fashionable.
This idea seemed strange to me at first, but it corresponds well to a common trend in America. Consider the artistic use of Chinese or Japanese words on product labels, advertisements, and even tattoos. There is an urban myth among young people in America about a man who gets what he thinks are the Chinese characters for “inner strength” tattooed on his arm, only to find out later from a friend who can read Chinese that the actual meaning is entirely different.
So although seeing these signs for the first time made me laugh out loud in public, now I understand their strangeness better than many other cultural differences between Japan and America.
I laughed soo hard at the "POWER SALE" one.
ReplyDeleteWhat you are witnessing is universal as I saw the same thing in many countries during my travels in Europe. It seems only natural to expect the native speaker to write his language with more precision than those for whom English is not the primary tongue. In most cases, we understand what they are saying although occasionally it is humorous. Imagine if I were in charge of doing the signage in Spanish-speaking countries—-they would really get a laugh!!
ReplyDeleteOther countries have unique and interesting ways of saying the same thing, even if they are English. When I went to Ireland the sign which we are used to seeing as Duck Your Head was please Mind Your Head, but a head on a ship is a bathroom, yet toilets in England are water stations. A bonnet is not a hat but car truck, and even in Pennsylvania the word soda, that we use for ginger ale or coke, was Pop. Pop for us was Grandfather. Which again is Papa in other places. Some words need no translation, as a smile of gratitude or a nod of greeting.
ReplyDeleteResearch "Engrish" and you will find many more interesting/appalling examples.
ReplyDeleteBut I wonder, how does this post illustrate Japanese people?