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Answerman - What's The Deal With Engrish?


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myskaros



Joined: 13 Jun 2011
Posts: 603
Location: J-Novel Club
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:07 pm Reply with quote
Bakuman.

"Let's hospital!"
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:15 pm Reply with quote
I don't know that native English speakers aren't creative & playful with the language. Being from Oklahoma, with it's rich mix of Native American, Ozark Hillbilly, Western Twang and Old South variants of English it is kind of hard not to have a playful attitude towards language.

Never had any trouble handling English as spoken by the many non-native speakers that I've encountered. The worst they can do is cause me to grin like a fool when they say something.

Mark Gosdin
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walw6pK4Alo



Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 9322
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:17 pm Reply with quote
I don't think there's any excuse for misspelling words anymore, we have Google translate. It might not always be accurate for sentences and syntax, but it won't misspell words. Still managing to miss a letter or mix an L or R means you just weren't even bothering.
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Merxamers



Joined: 09 Dec 2013
Posts: 720
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:21 pm Reply with quote
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure; among many examples, my favorite is

"Space Ripper Stingy Eyes!!!"
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marshall2000_uk



Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 46
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:26 pm Reply with quote
Merxamers wrote:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure; among many examples, my favorite is

"Space Ripper Stingy Eyes!!!"


That sounds almost as bad as the English accents on the dub... Horrendous.
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Just Passing Through



Joined: 04 Apr 2011
Posts: 277
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:30 pm Reply with quote
On the flipside (fripside?) there's US companies correcting Engrish which isn't actually Engrish. The Japanese tendency to end words on a vowel sound gets picked up, and corrected by removing the extraneous vowels.

So in Love, Election and Chocolate, everytime a character says 'manifesto', the subtitles say 'manifest'.

Come on Sentai, the clue's in the title... Election? You do know how elections work?
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6275
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:45 pm Reply with quote
Been watching some Red Jacket Lupin and I wonder how Italians
like seeing their country referred to as "Itary"?
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hudson15983



Joined: 27 Apr 2014
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:59 pm Reply with quote
First season of Symphogear has an extended engrish sequence that got a lot of laughter out of me.
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Paiprince



Joined: 21 Dec 2013
Posts: 593
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:07 pm Reply with quote
"English Speakers don't play around with their own language."

Ebonics
Myth Busted.

Anyways, English is losing that "coolness" factor now that more and more among the younger generation are reaching fluency almost to the level of the natives. It's now German and French (Russian to a less extent) that get this dubious honor in Japanese pop culture.
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Hameyadea



Joined: 23 Jun 2014
Posts: 3679
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:10 pm Reply with quote
walw6pK4Alo wrote:
I don't think there's any excuse for misspelling words anymore, we have Google translate. It might not always be accurate for sentences and syntax, but it won't misspell words. Still managing to miss a letter or mix an L or R means you just weren't even bothering.


I attribute some of those to human error. Just like having a character that, for a few frames, has either 4 fingers or 6.


Last edited by Hameyadea on Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
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residentgrigo



Joined: 23 Dec 2007
Posts: 2577
Location: Germany
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:10 pm Reply with quote
Go Home And Be A Family Man Zero Wing:
The Portuguese English As She Is Spoke should be is the original gangsta and even 2015´s career derailing-ly expensive MGS V managed to have some questionable use of the English language despite the budget (not that the writing was worth a damn anyway).
Not that i mind Engrish, as i grew up with abysmal OVAs to nurture me, and Japan´s use of the German (or sometimes Russian) language is way worse, if we are talking about pop culture only and not (road) signs/ads.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:15 pm Reply with quote
Basically, their "cool Western" attempt to embrace English is like our cool martial arts/Matrix/anime-inspired attempt to embrace Kanji characters on clothes, jewelry and tattoos, without any real knowledge of what it means, or whether we're even getting the right character for what we stylishly think it means.
The difference being, most of us didn't spend six years paying no attention to Mandarin or Japanese classes in school, and have even less of an idea to begin with. To us, it's just cool foreign stuff we want to show off knowing about.

The English words that show up out of nowhere in song lyrics can also use the cool "foreign" influence that English can have in non-English speaking countries, the way we use French or Italian for that certain je ne sais quois. (Being only vaguely aware of "I don't know what.")
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:26 pm Reply with quote
My favorite Engrish line in anime is easily "I AM THE BONE OF MY SWORD' by Archer in Unlimited Blade Works. It's silly and awkward, but it still sounds badass as hell.


Also, this Japanese Department store's awesome(and very explicit) attempt at Advertising will always make me laugh. Laughing Laughing
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5500
PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:26 pm Reply with quote
Hello I am Excel, Merry Christmas, You are Dog.
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omegaproxy





PostPosted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 2:33 pm Reply with quote
LOLOLOL whats the deal with Engrish? what kind of question is that ?
Its like saying, whats with low level Japanese speakers?
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