Funnily Engrish

Funny English TranslationsAs the famous Sri Lankan expression goes, ‘Today is lazy day’. So in keeping with this spirit, I have decided to be completely slothic for today’s blog post and entertain you instead with a list of wonderfully awful translations that I found while surfing the net over my morning coffee.

In a Tokyo Hotel:
Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such thing is please not to read notis.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Leipzig elevator:
Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up.

In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

In a Paris hotel elevator:
Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a hotel in Athens:
Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel:
The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In a Japanese hotel:
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery:
You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursdays.

In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers:
Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On the menu of a Polish hotel:
Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop:
Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In a Bangkok dry cleaner’s:
Drop your trousers here for best results.

Outside a Paris dress shop:
Dresses for street walking.

In a Rhodes tailor shop:
Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

From the Soviet Weekly:
There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

In a Zurich hotel:
Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.

In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

In a Rome laundry:
Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency:
Take one of our horse-driven city tours – we guarantee no miscarriages.

Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand:
Would you like to ride on your own ass?

In a Swiss mountain inn:
Special today – no ice cream. (kein Eis?)

In a Bangkok temple:
It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.

In a Tokyo bar:
Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.

In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
We take your bags and send them in all directions.

On the door of a Moscow hotel room:
If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

In a Budapest zoo:
Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

In the office of a Rome doctor:
Specialist in women and other diseases.

In an Acapulco hotel:
The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

In a Tokyo shop:
Our nylons cost more than common, but you’ll find they are best in the long run.

In a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:
Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

In a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:
When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.

Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance:
– English well talking.
– Here speeching American.

On a Malaga freeway:
Locals for sale or rent.

In a hotel in Bruges:
Bathroom light operates with motion sensor. Turns off approx. 15 minutes after last registered motion.

On a Bulgarian web site:
You may visit this webpage, only if you are logged in or it is unavailable.

In an East African newspaper:
A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency:
Take one of our horse-driven city tours. We guarantee no miscarriages.

Detour sign in Kyushi, Japan:
Stop: Drive Sideways.

Original post can be found here.

13 thoughts on “Funnily Engrish”

  1. “In a Japanese hotel:
    You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.”

    Are you sure this wasn’t in a certain New York hotel recently? lol :D

  2. Thank you so much for passing this along! This kind of verbal misconstruction is absolutely my favorite kind of humor! I haven’t laughed so hard in months! (Not sure what that says about my psychology, but … )

    1. Glad you enjoyed it Lorinda. I should make a list of some of my English student’s wonderful utterances.

      “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”
      “Yes, it’s a cabbage!”

      (Oui, c’est chou!’)

  3. Hi Derek I hope that you posted this in lifestyle on Digg I think that a lot of people will enjoy it. I’ll do it anyway. On a more serious not did you see the story on Digg about the share prices of Amazon I found it very interesting how it all works

  4. Haven’t laughed like that in years. If laughter is the best medicine, then I’m cured.

    Thanks, Derek.

    I found one in Crete. A sign over the terminals in a cyber-cafe:

    Betting on these computers is not aloud.

  5. Melanie Rovens

    Very jet lagged tonight, I read your blog. Sometimes with tears in my eyes. After 25 days traveling with my 16 yr old…….It could not sum up my exhaustion better. He is still mad we did not go to Switzerland. I hind sight ( does that mean you are looking at your ass?) we should have

  6. I love blogs that deals with lost in translations and verbal misconstructions, I don’t know why but it really made my day. I been into different blogs that deals with it and I found yours.

    I will be waiting for your next post.

  7. Nathalia Litteral

    Say, you got a nice article post.Really looking forward to read more. Great.

  8. William Taylor

    I travel frequently to China and make a game out of finding “funnily Engrish” such as:

    A sign on subway stairs “Slip carefully”

    A sign on the back of a passenger car “Baby on Road”

    A sign above a garbage container “Do not mess trash carefully”

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