hug_machine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hug_machine) wrote2010-02-23 04:15 pm
hug_machine) wrote2010-02-23 04:15 pm
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Not so long ago, one of my dearest pals went to Japan to teach English. She is having a great time, meeting tons of awesome people and getting to see a ton of jealous-making sights all over Asia.
She's also become my personal importer of kawaii socks, cute stationary, delicious Japanese candy and Engrish.
Engrish, if you don't know, is one of the best things to happen to translation evar.
It's what happens when poorly made translation software is depended on by people who don't really speak English very well. A lot of it happens in Japan, but it's kind of a global phenomenon! It even happens in English speaking countries, when people get tattoos or wear shirts of languages they don't speak. Heck, there's also a website for Engrish-in-reverse --people who don't read Chinese trying to use it because they think it looks cool.
Since I very much heart the funny and odd things bad translation does to English, I had to try my own! So a few English proverbs and a few run-throughs of Babelfish (sometimes to Japanese and back to English, sometimes to Japanese and then to Italian and then to Greek and then back to English. Whatever it took!) later, and I have me some mangled proverbs ready to be embroidered into your favorite dish towels.
Original: The early bird catches the worm.
Engrishified: Morning shift hen will get worms.
Original: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Engrishified: One day the absent doctor keeps an apple.
Original: Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Engrishified: Life is exactly the dish of the cherry.
Original: Laughter is the best medicine.
Engrishified: Laugh is the foremost drug.
Original: Actions speak louder than words.
Engrishified: Behavior is superior to the yell of words.
BONUS! POST YR FINEST ENGRISH EXAMPLES IN THE COMMENTS, IF YA GOT 'EM!
This post brought to you by week eleventysomething of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
therealljidol!
She's also become my personal importer of kawaii socks, cute stationary, delicious Japanese candy and Engrish.
Engrish, if you don't know, is one of the best things to happen to translation evar.
It's what happens when poorly made translation software is depended on by people who don't really speak English very well. A lot of it happens in Japan, but it's kind of a global phenomenon! It even happens in English speaking countries, when people get tattoos or wear shirts of languages they don't speak. Heck, there's also a website for Engrish-in-reverse --people who don't read Chinese trying to use it because they think it looks cool.
Since I very much heart the funny and odd things bad translation does to English, I had to try my own! So a few English proverbs and a few run-throughs of Babelfish (sometimes to Japanese and back to English, sometimes to Japanese and then to Italian and then to Greek and then back to English. Whatever it took!) later, and I have me some mangled proverbs ready to be embroidered into your favorite dish towels.
Original: The early bird catches the worm.
Engrishified: Morning shift hen will get worms.
Original: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Engrishified: One day the absent doctor keeps an apple.
Original: Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Engrishified: Life is exactly the dish of the cherry.
Original: Laughter is the best medicine.
Engrishified: Laugh is the foremost drug.
Original: Actions speak louder than words.
Engrishified: Behavior is superior to the yell of words.
BONUS! POST YR FINEST ENGRISH EXAMPLES IN THE COMMENTS, IF YA GOT 'EM!
This post brought to you by week eleventysomething of
therealljidol!
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One of my first jobs was secretary to a German woman who came over to head the U.S. branch of a German publishing company. She asked me to help her with her English by editing her letters as I typed them. One of the first ones she wrote, in which she was asking to speak with the President of another company began "I would like to have intercourse with..." because in some Thesaurus she had been looking at "intercourse" was listed as a synonym for "conversation".
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P.