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Sure, you might lose something in translation, but what you get in return—humor—is often more than worth it. English is a darn strange language when you really have a good and long think about it. The rules of spelling, for one, are so inconsistent, it practically borders on cosmically ironic poetry. And it can be a nightmare to learn for anyone hoping to study a second language… or, truth be told, for native speakers as well.

However, some English mess-ups are far worse and vastly more hilarious than others. The r/engrish subreddit has been sharing the most bizarre mistakes spotted all around the world for over 14 years, since 2008.

Check out the most hilarious English translations, typos, and errors below, Pandas. Be sure to upvote the ones that made you giggle the most. When you’re done, check out Bored Panda’s earlier article about the subreddit right over here. Oh, and keep in mind that nobody’s making fun of people who genuinely do their best: learning any new language is hard. But ridiculous mistakes are, well, genuinely funny—and they deserve to have an audience.

#3

When People Make Memes Out Of Memes

When People Make Memes Out Of Memes

OhThatNigGed Report

Bored Panda was very interested to figure out just how rare or widespread English errors like this actually are. That's why we reached out to a foreign exchange student who has recently moved from Europe to Japan's capital, Tokyo.

We had a chat about communicating with the locals in English, as well as the language mix-ups that she's personally seen with her own two eyes. The exchange student preferred to remain anonymous.

She told Bored Panda that, so far, it's been difficult finding Japanese people who choose to speak in English. "It’s difficult to communicate with the locals because they either do not speak English at all, but even those who speak some English are too embarrassed to try speaking it," she shared her firsthand experience.

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Though it's easy to think that hilarious spelling and translation errors are to be found around every corner abroad, that's not really how things work. The reality is actually far more mundane: jaw-droppingly hilarious mistakes are few and far between. Though this rarity probably helps make them all the funnier.

"I haven’t noticed that many bad translations," the exchange student shared with us about her experience living in Tokyo and traveling around Japan so far.

"Sometimes, 'R' and 'L' are mixed up in an English word and it makes me wonder how did they miss that because I assume they use a translator/dictionary when making signs and stuff," she pointed out that, in Japanese, both of these letters are pronounced interchangeably. "But it’s not that common," she added.

"I haven’t seen any funny mistranslations, except one Italian-style restaurant had a really overall botched English menu translation," she said.

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The r/engrish subreddit has amassed over 736k members in the nearly one-and-half decades since the online community was first created.

The moderators of the group ask people to follow the rules, including avoiding posting any intentional English mistakes. All errors have to be genuine. What’s more, tiny typos or unfunny spelling mistakes also aren’t the focus of the subreddit. The mess-ups have to be big, bold, and beautiful! Frankly, the more embarrassing and hilarious, the better

Everyone makes English mistakes. Whether you’re a foreigner or born in an English-speaking country doesn’t matter much. Your ability to write, edit, proofread, and translate well depends more on your work ethic and ability to learn than anything you’re born with.

Sure, native speakers might have a head start. But we’ve all seen way too many cases of people who can’t string a proper sentence together to believe that they have any long-lasting advantage. Talents and opportunities mean nothing if you don’t put in the hard work to nurture them.

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Writing for Aeon online magazine, John McWhorter a professor of linguistics and American, noted that English speakers “know that their language is odd. So do people saddled with learning it non-natively.”

“The oddity that we all perceive most readily is its spelling, which is indeed a nightmare. In countries where English isn’t spoken, there is no such thing as a ‘spelling bee’ competition. For a normal language, spelling at least pretends a basic correspondence to the way people pronounce the words. But English is not normal,” he points out.

“Spelling is a matter of writing, of course, whereas language is fundamentally about speaking. Speaking came long before writing, we speak much more, and all but a couple of hundred of the world’s thousands of languages are rarely or never written. Yet even in its spoken form, English is weird,” McWhorter writes.

“It’s weird in ways that are easy to miss, especially since Anglophones in the United States and Britain are not exactly rabid to learn other languages. But our monolingual tendency leaves us like the proverbial fish not knowing that it is wet. Our language feels ‘normal’ only until you get a sense of what normal really is.”

#13

University Of Potato Ice

University Of Potato Ice

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He continues: “We think it’s a nuisance that so many European languages assign gender to nouns for no reason, with French having female moons and male boats and such. But actually, it’s us who are odd: almost all European languages belong to one family—Indo-European—and of all of them, English is the only one that doesn’t assign genders that way.”

#16

This Disturbs Me

This Disturbs Me

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“More weirdness? OK. There is exactly one language on Earth whose present tense requires a special ending only in the third‑person singular. I’m writing in it. I talk, you talk, he/she talk-s—why just that? The present‑tense verbs of a normal language have either no endings or a bunch of different ones (Spanish: hablo, hablas, habla). And try naming another language where you have to slip do into sentences to negate or question something. Do you find that difficult? Unless you happen to be from Wales, Ireland or the north of France, probably.”

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#19

You're Under The Rest

You're Under The Rest

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gildoringlorion avatar
Homer of Ionia
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Under the rest??? But what about the first ones! Do they have someone under them???

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Previously, Lisa McLendon, from the University of Kansas, explained to Bored Panda why English is such a “train wreck” when it comes to spelling.

"English spelling is such a train wreck, with its myriad silent letters and wildly varying pronunciations for letters and letter combinations. But also, articles (a/an/the) tend to be difficult for people whose native language doesn’t have them, and our tense/aspect blend with combinations of auxiliary verbs makes the English verb system tricky even for native speakers sometimes," she told us during an earlier interview.

#24

Sounds Like And Interesting Dish

Sounds Like And Interesting Dish

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Katie Lutesinger
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

First they tried to "cure" us with bleach, and now they're serving us up for dinner. I always knew it would come to this!

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According to the professor, English isn’t spelled as it sounds for several reasons. Among them, we have to consider when certain words first entered the language, what their origins are, and when words were ‘codified.’

"People have proposed spelling overhauls before but they tend to not go anywhere, probably because it’s such a daunting project—could we all agree on what the changes would be?—and because then an entire body of texts would become basically a foreign language to the next generation. Many factors in addition to spelling contribute to a language’s 'character,' but some spellings do have echoes of archaic English—in my opinion, it would be a little bit sad to lose some of that," the professor told Bored Panda.

#26

Chinese C**k Wanted

Chinese C**k Wanted

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Mat Hall
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The pointless censorship on BP is getting kind of tiresome. We all know what it says, but covering it up completely ruins the effect.

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The language expert shared with us that spell check, as a whole, isn’t as great as many think it is. Sure, it’s wonderful for catching typos and misspellings, but it’s not quite up to part with our expectations yet.

"Where it’s more of a curse than a blessing is with homonyms/homophones because it won’t flag a word that is a word, but not the word you want. Think affect/effect, who’s/whose, led/lead but also word pairs like form/from and not-synonyms like bemuse/amuse, etc," she said.

#30

Being Polite To The Boss’s Secretary While Using Grammarly

Being Polite To The Boss’s Secretary While Using Grammarly

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Passerby
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, you put an apostrophe where it doesn't belong, so this is on you.

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#32

You Are F**k

You Are F**k

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gildoringlorion avatar
Homer of Ionia
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What a great discovery! Wait... that would mean... water is melted ice! I am a genius!

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#33

Jeez, They Went Harsh

Jeez, They Went Harsh

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Daria
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When you're fed up with people putting their frigging hands in the meheen

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#36

Found This On Fb

Found This On Fb

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UnpopularPanda
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well if you know (even) basic Arabic, you'll know that these are actually colloquial/slang terms used in spoken Arabic and I am guessing they MUST communicate in English so they've literally translated every phrase. In their heads they still read it in Arabic and it makes perfect sense. And going by the Arabic text I am guessing this is Egyptian or some African dialect of Arabic. If I were to translate it by language and not by words the first email says Dear HR, please don't cut my salary, I have mouths to feed and rent to pay. I got children to take care of while you're living a lavish life. The wish about damaging the house must again be something lost in translation because in Arabid even a vovel mark or a tittle changes the whole meaning

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#38

To Punish And Enslave

To Punish And Enslave

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#39

Praganant

Praganant

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the shy platypus from nextdoor
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's not only the spelling which I'm worrying about (oh God I think my grammar in this sentence is so bad but I don't know how else I could say that sentence 😅, btw I'm not a native speaker)

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#43

A Height Measuring Pole I Found At A Restaurant

A Height Measuring Pole I Found At A Restaurant

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#44

Who Wants Go For German Sexual Harassment? Sounds Yummy Ngl

Who Wants Go For German Sexual Harassment? Sounds Yummy Ngl

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#47

This Bizarre Conversation On The Side Of My Drink

This Bizarre Conversation On The Side Of My Drink

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#48

Ah Yes! I’ve Always Wanted A Free Country!!

Ah Yes! I’ve Always Wanted A Free Country!!

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#50

Ok Probably Not The Type Of Engrish This Sub Normally Showcases But This Is Ridiculous

Ok Probably Not The Type Of Engrish This Sub Normally Showcases But This Is Ridiculous

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Solid Pileo
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Please try and help her heal from the brain aneurysm she seems to have suffered.

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