Engrish.com

[jonesy]

'Nuff said.

 

[Pbartender]

"Jeez, when will they learn that l and r are not interchangable?" -- Okay, followed up by the smiley you may have been joking, but most people don't know the answer to this one. So allow me: um ... they are interchangable. More precisely, "l" and "r" don't exist in Asian languages, or at least, most of them. Instead, there is a sound that is midway between the two sounds that we're familiar with. The brain categorizes incoming data to correlate with what it knows, so to the native speaker, both "l" and "r" get turned into that sound. When the speaker then goes to use the word, they also use the neutral sound ... and we "l-r" speakers notice how it sounds wrongish, and our brains then map to what we know ... but since we notice the difference, we exagerate that and map it to the "wrong" one.

Some hispanics have the same "midsound" problem with "ch" and "sh".

Similar to how most Americans, when speaking German, can't seem to replace 'sh' or 'ck' for back-of-the-throat-hawking-a-loogie-noise your average German uses to pronounce 'ch'.

So, "Ich möchte einen Kuchen kochen," ends up as...
"Ish mushte einen Kooshen koshen," or...
"Ick moockte einen Koocken kocken," or some combination of the two.

And I know for a fact that we get made fun of it just as much as Engrish.com makes fun of the stereo typical Japanese accent.

Now, that said...

In college, I had a Japanese roommate one year. Great guy. Exceedingly polite. Always brought back yummy-tasties from Japan, and always had Playstation and N64 games six months before they were released in the US (even though the format wouldn't work on anyone else's console, and noone else in the dorm could understand what was going on anyway).

The thing that always surprised me most about him was the fact that he had the most stereotypical Japanese accent I have ever heard... To the point that he wrote that way. He would always give me his lab reports and essays so that I could proof read them. He was quite appreciative of it, and the biggest compliment he ever gave me was that he enjoyed speaking with me, because I was easy for him to understand, because I spoke clearly and not to quickly. I like to think that, because of me, he was just a bit more fluent in English by the time we stopped rooming together.

 

[jonesy]

...even though the format wouldn't work on anyone else's console, and noone else in the dorm could understand what was going on anyway...

As if one could actually understand what's going on in most japanese games with translations.

 

[Pbartender]

As if one could actually understand what's going on in most japanese games with translations.

It was really fun to watch a half dozen guys staring over his shoulder watching him play the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII, and continually asking "What's she saying now? What happening? I don't get it!" a year before the game's schedule release in the US.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Similar to how most Americans, when speaking German, can't seem to replace 'sh' or 'ck' for back-of-the-throat-hawking-a-loogie-noise your average German uses to pronounce 'ch'.

So, "Ich möchte einen Kuchen kochen," ends up as...
"Ish mushte einen Kooshen koshen," or...
"Ick moockte einen Koocken kocken," or some combination of the two.

And I know for a fact that we get made fun of it just as much as Engrish.com makes fun of the stereo typical Japanese accent.

Which is really funny, given that in Southern Germany in particular, you hear a lot of "sh" in place of "ch" (which I'd chalk up to the influence of local dialects).

Americans have no business making fun of others' English when we can't speak our own bloody language. Many times I've been rather embarrased when the non-English speaker I was speaking to spoke much more grammatically correct English than I do. Though that's fun as well -- trying to explain some Western or Southern American slang to Germans, Arabs, Argentinians, or even Brits.

I once spent a lovely dinner party in England comparing language notes with the woman sitting next to me and sorting through all sorts of mutual understandings. I'd been horrified by the number of times and variations I'd heard on the radio on the phrase "smoking a fag" during my drive from London, for example; she revealed how she'd always like the song "American Pie" but had no idea what a Chevy or a levee were until she took a trip to New Orleans.

I'm headed to Israel in about three weeks. I can only imagine what sort of linguistic entertainment I'll find there.

 

[jgbrowning]

India has all sorts of these gems as well. The most common is the substitution of "Kw" for "Q" in words like Quality. In the arabic influenced dialects the "Q" symbol is use for the "CH" (like the german CH) sound so Kw is used instead so people pronounce properly.

Of course the sign "Child Bear" for "Chilled Beer" is still funny....

joe b.

 

[fujaiwei]

I teach in Japan and it's a blast, most of the time. Quick story: I was saying good bye to a student, and he said, "Keep touching me!" instead of "Keep in touch."

I also once asked a friend to wake me up the next morning, and I said "Okae kudasai.", which turns out to be "Rape me, please."

What I should have said was "Okoe kudasai."

EDIT: I guess I've been edited by a mod.; I didn't think talking about it so abstractly was offensive . . .

 

[Gnarlo]

I teach in Japan and it's a blast, most of the time. Quick story: I was saying good bye to a student, and he said, "Keep touching me!" instead of "Keep in touch."

I also once asked a friend to wake me up the next morning, and I said "Okae kudasai.", which turns out to be "Rape me, please."

What I should have said was "Okoe kudasai."

They are that close together?!

Well, at least that explains some of the anime I've seen....

My wife is Persian, and still has a wonderful grasp on English at times (much better than my grasp on Farsi, which is limited to 3 phrases you can't repeat in polite company ). One of her favorite words is "thing", as in "Can you bring me the thing?", "It's behind the thing", and "Did you get the thing for the thing?" I found out from her that the Farsi word for thing is pronounced "cheese", so I refer to our house as the "Cheese Shop" now...

 

[Desdichado]

Some hispanics have the same "midsound" problem with "ch" and "sh".

Huh. Never heard that one. Rather, they use and [v] interchangeably, and can't well distinguish between [zh] and [j], for the most part. But they all seemed to get [sh] fine when I lived in Argentina. After all, [sh] used to be a sound in many Spanish dialects not that long ago. Still is, in Mexico, I understand. Oaxaca is still pronounced [washaka], for instance.

 

[Desdichado]

I teach in Japan and it's a blast, most of the time. Quick story: I was saying good bye to a student, and he said, "Keep touching me!" instead of "Keep in touch."

I also once asked a friend to wake me up the next morning, and I said "Okae kudasai.", which turns out to be "Rape me, please."

What I should have said was "Okoe kudasai."

I bet everyone who's lived in a country where they speak another language has some story like this. I've got two, although only one of them was me. Once, after coming in to someone's house in Argentina after getting off my bike on a very windy day, I got a comment or two about my wild hair. I made the comment, I thought, that I had left my comb at home, so I couldn't do anything about it. However, the word for comb, pene is pronounced very similarly to the word for penis, peine. I'm sure you can fill in the blanks...

Another girl I knew was asked to speak for a few minutes in church to introduce herself when she arrived. She meant to say, "I'm very embarrassed because the bishop asked me to speak." There is a common misconception, however, that the Spanish word embarasada means embarrassed because it's so similar to the English word. As a matter of fact, it means pregnant.