Balloon Shapes By Cops » Engrish

I’m Feeling…Grad All Over…

Silentjim — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:32:40 +0000

I was walking through Umeda in Osaka yesterday after work when I spotted this shop and had to take a photo of it…

Grad All Over

Now it’s very easy to make fun of some of the bad English that you see and hear everyday in Japan (especially on T-shirts and signs) (see Engrish.com for some fantastic examples) and, well, sometimes I do.

But lets face it, anyone who’s heard my bad Japanese or seen the blank expressions on waitresses faces when I try to order something and they can’t understand my accent, knows I have no right to make fun…

But what really baffles me is why nobody checks the English in a dictionary or something?

I mean, you decide to build a shop, think of a name, pay someone probably a lot of money to put a big sign on your shop window…wouldn’t it make sense to just check an English dictionary before? Just to be sure?

Just type it into google at least and see what comes out?

There was an advert in a beauty magazine I saw last month for some new makeup, and in big letters above the pretty girls face was “Palty!!”

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What’s a Bookazine?

Silentjim — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:51:09 +0000

It’s not very often that you come across some Japanese/English that is actually more elegant than the English equivalent,I mean, they have changed Sandwhich to Sando, Grand Opening to Grand Open and Car Indicator to Winker (for god’s sake!).

But I was recently shocked to see on the back of an English magazine an advert for a cross between a book and a magazine, called, incredibly clumsily a Bookazine.

For years the Japanese have had the equivalent, called, much more elegantly, a MOOK.

How neat is that?

I’m Feeling…Grad All Over…

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Post tags: Bookazine, Engrish, Mook

Everyone’s got it in for Ken

Silentjim — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 03:54:43 +0000

As you may know, the Japanese love to “play” with English, which leads to some hilarious and sometimes disturbing signs and t-shirts.

Who can forget the first time they saw an “Emergency Cock” on a bus??

Well I was just wandering down to my local supermarket to buy dinner, when a young man pulled up at the convenience store (on his bike) wearing a delightful t-shirt. Now, maybe it’s not a mistake or random English, maybe Ken Livingstone is really unpopular in Kobe aswell as London…but his t-shirt said (edited here for politeness sake)

F*CK
KEN

I wish I had asked him where he bought it.
For more of the same, check out www.engrish.com

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© Silentjim for Balloon Shapes By Cops, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Engrish, Ken Livingstone