35 Times People Came Across Such Hilarious English Language Mishaps, They Had To Take A Pic
Engrish is a term used to describe funny and often unintentional misuse of the English language, and there's a website of the same name that has been running since 1999, sharing examples of such instances.
Whether we're talking about restaurant signs, Amazon ads, or product labels, turns out, there's no shortage of texts that were introduced to the public without running them through a proofreader first.
But before we continue, it's important to note that Engrish is not trying to mock or criticize non-native speakers but rather to appreciate the humor that unexpectedly arises in everyday life. So, without further ado, let's do just that!
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Thank Goodness I’m Stuck In The Past
What it says in Japanese is that it's dangerous to go further than this point.
Not Much To Do Here
English belongs to the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European language family.
It is one of the most popular languages in the world, with approximately 1.5 billion speakers, the mother tongue of more than 350 million people, and the most widely taught foreign language.
Don’t Believe It? C4 Yourself
I’m Betting It’s Not A Bible
Sometimes We Wish You Were Someone Else
To someone who is well versed in the language, the mistakes in these pictures might seem absurd, but despite its prevalence, English is quite hard to learn.
"The most difficulty arises when people ... don’t have the advantage of sharing many borrowed words or grammatical patterns," "Sean Sutherland, senior lecturer in English language and linguistics at the University of Westminster, United Kingom, said.
"This will include speakers of Arabic, Urdu, and Bengali"
You Can’t Handle It
So... This Isn't Sushi
Make It Look Like An Accident
It Kills 666% Of The Germs!
In his own experience, the most common complaint learners make about English is that the spelling of words often has little or nothing to do with their pronunciation.
"It’s easy enough to teach someone how to write the letter 'a', for example, but then they must be taught that its pronunciation changes in words like hat, hate, and father. In oak, it isn’t pronounced at all," the linguist explained.
"Compare this to the simplicity of Spanish, a language in which an 'a' and other vowels rarely change pronunciation from word to word."
No Ham, No Fourl
Damn Kids
I Feel I Can Trust Light Gary
Both Garys seem very serious, irrespective of their hat colours!
Resist. It Is Not Sorry
Furthermore, English keeps adopting new words from other languages (350, to be exact, according to David Crystal's book 'English as a Global Language').
With so many sources behind its evolution, English is malleable, or as Robert Burchfield, calls it in 'The English Language', "a fleet of juggernaut trucks that goes on regardless."
No form of linguistic engineering and no amount of linguistic legislation will prevent the myriads of change that lie ahead, he said, and people whose texts ended up on 'Engrish' would probably agree.
Swearing At The Water Does Help
Employee Complaints Are Down
Now I Can’t Seem To Think Of Anything Else
Waves Begin At 9 Am
Good news, I hate when they have to close an entire ocean for renovation.
Which Came First... The Driver Or The Fee?
It’s A Long Story
Show Me Someone Who Can
Keep Baking, Kids
Now I Am [furious]
Because A Whole Child Would Be Insane
Careful Injuries Are No Accident
Spanked Tender
If You’re Alive, Thank A Sign
Speaking as someone who understands Chinese, it actually says "be careful".
You Won’t Like The Paper, Either
And Yet We Keep Selling Them
I Swear There’s A Towel
This Will Go Well With My Naivety Scene
Batman Will Be Sad That He Went Legit
The pure existence of penguins makes every day nicer, even without drugs 🥰🐧
Then Open The Door To Turn The Knob
Shart Will Do In A Pinch
Shít. Shít shít shít. BP, get your fúcking censoring straight, stop censoring the punchlines of your own fúcking jokes. /edit: lol, some special snowflake reported this comment and got my account banned from commenting. ABC the Fourth, here we come.
Your Moist Lies Won’t Work Here
He’s A 9, But A 10 With Soup
The vowel drop overcorrection! In Japanese every consonant except “n” has to have a vowel after it, so there are a lot of loan words where a vowel has been added on the end. So when Japanese people learn English they have to learn to drop the vowel in a lot of those words, and sometimes they drop a vowel that was legit. I am still not OK after hearing a Jpop song where they wanted to say “thank you” in a bunch of languages and they knew that the French word is pronounced “merushi boku” in Japanese so they sang “merci bock”.
Yeah, I'll Just Take A Soda
See The Flames? Didn't Think So
Nobody Expects!
Grandma Is Getting Suspicious About Our Family Portrait
How Am I Going To Eat?
As Long As It Is Past-Your-Eyes... . (Found In South Africa)
Is a low fart spread that thing you do when you don't want to make a noise so you try to spread your buttcheeks to minimise the sound? Or is that just me? 🤔
Your Vehicle Will Be Toad
The Learning Academy needs to learn the difference between your and you’re.
Choose Wisely On Erection Day!
The positioning of that X suggests that someone knew what they were doing here...
This Body Isn’t Just Going To Injure Itself
In Spain, when somebody falls down, many people ask "have you fallen down?", instead of "are you ok?". They are trying to be helpful, but it sound absolutely ridiculous. Of course I've fallen down, I'm not here on the floor for pleasure!
Octopus Is Welcome
Thank You For Pleasuring Me
Apart from the first sentence, this is probably the best translation on this post.
Be Sure To Visit Some Place!
Perfectly understandable, I've used the "because of reasons" excuse myself.
And You Gonna Be Sorry
Tell Me Your Pharmacist Doesn’t Respect You Without Telling Me
Japanese and Chinese people find it extremely difficult to hear the difference between "r" and "l". It's such an obvious difference for us, but they can't hear it.
Right Click For Toilet Paper
I Swear, If You Animal One More Time
Will He Ever Catch That Moose?
That Grass Don’t Replant Itself But You Can Always Have Another Kid
The caption is not wrong, humans are a regrowable ressource after all!
It’s The Secret Spices!
People Are Lining Up For Drowning Accidents!
No Daughter Of Mine Is Wearing Sparkphss On Her Prodnetions!
We Paid The Bill
Definitely Not Smart Food
Remember, Breathe Mouth
Please Don't Make Cameras Angry
Openope
Ca't We Talk This Over?
They Have Quite A Student Body
Or Just Poach Me Into Orbit
So there's an amazing food truck in northern Utah called "Fry Me to the Moon." The donuts are excellent.
Paper Does That To Me
This isn’t totally different from what the actual Japanese text says in this kind of ad. The “won’t you ~” thing is a stock phrase - for example, where English advertising might say “buy my festering turd of a record”, Japanese advertising tends to say “won’t you buy my festering turd of a record?”
Happy Smorked Turkey Day!
*cough* Giant Hornet
Brevity Is The Soul Of Greeting
Christmas Text Is Made
Nothing Stimulates Like The Apocalypse
I don’t know what they’re going for here, but “stimulate your five senses” is a stock phrase in Japanese advertising. It means there’s more to the experience than just looking at stuff.
Cholesterol Is A Gateway Drug
You Know, Cheese And Stuff
Do Not Hide If You Don’t Want A Hiding
It's Sad Because Porky Was In Recovery
No Safety. Smoking First
What Else Would You Do After Entering?
Let’s Tame Activity
“When there are wild elephants nearby, do not go near them”.
What Happened To Sugar And Spice?
Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let 50 cents. No phone, no pool, no pets. I ain't got no cigarettes. Ah but two hours of pushing broom buys an eight by twelve four bit room. I'm a man of means by no means. King of the road.
I have such respect for anyone who tries to communicate in another language. Most people I know would mock these (they warm my heart) but could they write down any word in Japanese? Or Korean? Or French even? Bravo for the genuine humour and good efforts of all of these
Many of the Japanese instances are meant for the Japanese and not English speakers. So, they don't got through much, if any, editing. They're a sort of "decoration". English in Japanese songs? Same.
Load More Replies...One of the best I’ve heard was an ISP using woody the woodpecker as a mascot. Their slogan was “touch Woody, the Internet p****r.”
My favorite has to be a Japanese store that thought "f*ckin" was slang for 'really good', resulting in.... 8fj05hletr301.jpg
Considering how easy it would be to send your proposed translation to anyone in the world who speaks that language, these are really sad.
I have such respect for anyone who tries to communicate in another language. Most people I know would mock these (they warm my heart) but could they write down any word in Japanese? Or Korean? Or French even? Bravo for the genuine humour and good efforts of all of these
Many of the Japanese instances are meant for the Japanese and not English speakers. So, they don't got through much, if any, editing. They're a sort of "decoration". English in Japanese songs? Same.
Load More Replies...One of the best I’ve heard was an ISP using woody the woodpecker as a mascot. Their slogan was “touch Woody, the Internet p****r.”
My favorite has to be a Japanese store that thought "f*ckin" was slang for 'really good', resulting in.... 8fj05hletr301.jpg
Considering how easy it would be to send your proposed translation to anyone in the world who speaks that language, these are really sad.