Forum - View topicAnswerman - What's The Deal With Engrish?
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4629 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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^^
That's not a hard one to explain. The Japanese language simply does not feature natural sounds that differentiate between the letters, only one that sounds like a combo of the both. If English isn't learned as a second language very early it becomes difficult to learn. Think of it like the Spanish "rolling r" sound. Only much more difficult. A rolling r comes natural to native Spanish speakers (of the dialects that use it- not all do) but more difficult to those that learn it later. Asian singers aren't switching r and l consonants on purpose, they simply can't tell the difference. Maybe some do attempt to differentiate but these are unfamiliar foreign words, they might know different words have different sounds and have practiced trying to make the different sounds, but get confused as to which are which. Remember, it's not only that they can't "pronounce" the letters correctly, they also can't easily hear the difference either. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I am a frequent visitor of Engrish. Always have been, ever since it had so few entries you could see them all in 5 minutes with a dial-up connection. As such, Engrish is always amusing to me, never offensive, because I know they always mean well.
I do have to wonder if random use of English in Asian countries is also linked to McDonald's being even more of a pillar of a big city's landscape than it is in the USA and it being a social hangout spot for young people. That being said, there is one phenomenon in east Asia where use of English is meant to serve the locals: You've probably seen a Chinese product whose packaging is completely in English (well, Engrish), with not a lick of Chinese anywhere on it. This is because the Chinese also equate the phrase "made in China" with shoddy workmanship and bad quality. By making the packaging completely in whatever English they know and not having its country of origin anywhere on it, they hope to pass the product off to potential Chinese customers as a western product and trick them into thinking it's higher quality than it really is.
In most of those cases, it's because the English text was meant for decorative use. In some cases, however, the machine translation creates incorrectly-spelled words, most infamously in Backstroke of the West with words like "politicses" and "god'sly."
I take it, then, that most Japanese people are unaware that native English speakers don't use the language like that?
Well, "Aliens attack, you say?" is a perfectly grammatically correct sentence and can be used appropriately if the topic of discussion is an alien attack.
If it's non-Japanese fans of Japan getting uppity over even the tiniest bits (or even incorrectly blaming flawless Japanese), it's just them being Japanophiles. Or rather, it's just them being huge fans of something. It's the equivalent of calling the pig-like villain of the early Legend of Zelda games "Gannon." The only people who'd care are the Zelda super-fans, but they get really distressed over it.
I am not a linguist (I am, in fact, terrible with linguistics), but I do speak a language that uses L and R sounds interchangeably, albeit the reverse of Japanese in that R sounds become L sounds. My experience with speakers of that language is that they honestly do not know the difference between the letters L and R and consider them two letters that serve the same purpose. When trying to write in English, they get very confused and hung up when they have to write words with L's and R's in them. My mom has had to frequently communicate with someone named Larry for the past decade or so, and she struggles to pronounce his name to this day (but she gives it her best effort to try to memorize exactly how it should be pronounced). I do believe that the pronunciation options in a person's fluent language or languages creates a profound effect on how they perceive spelling and how they hear other people speak. This aforementioned language, for instance, does not end any of its words in an L sound. Any loanwords that normally end in an L sound becomes an N sound instead (which IS used to end native words). "Mall" becomes pronounced as "mon," "bell" becomes pronounced as "ben," and "digital" becomes pronounced as "digitun." The native speakers I've spoken with seem to genuinely hear "footbon" when I say "football" and do not understand that they're pronouncing it improperly. To them, "footbon" and "football" are homonymous. (If you're REALLY good with languages, you may have deduced this language is Thai.)
Yep, that's exactly what the sign is telling people not to do. Squatting like that not only can cause you to miss, but you might break the toilet and injure yourself falling because of all the weight concentrated on one spot. As for the one that's utterly incomprehensible, there's the menu item that's described as having a "Kim Possible" flavor. |
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Mikeski
Posts: 608 Location: Minneapolis, MN |
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The Engrish bits that give me a serious case of the what-the-hecks are the places where a native English speaker is brought in to speak the lines, but they're not allowed to correct the grammar. The devices in MGLN, the ship's computer in Voices of a Distant Star...
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Cptn_Taylor
Posts: 925 |
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The Italians dubbed every Lupin series including "The woman called Fujiko Mine". So they don't care how the Japanese pronounce things. |
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irfanf
Posts: 22 |
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*looks at 5pb. and the SciADV series*
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Shaterri
Posts: 173 |
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My favorite was a drive-by (well, train-by) example during a business trip to Japan about 15 years ago: one of those standard little roadside country shops that proudly proclaimed itself (exclamation point and all) as "Arts and Crafts SOMETHING!". It was impossible not to adore their enthusiasm (and sadly I never got to go in and see what they sold)...
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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My favorite Engrish would have to come from Detekoi Tobikiri Zenkai Power! It's just so funny hearing it and thinking WTF are they talking about Poppukoon Shawaa
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NeoStrayCat
 Posts: 627 |
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Especially S;G and Rintaro's "I am Mad Scientist" line, lol. |
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belvadeer
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Okay, I won't deny that one had me in tears from all the laughing, but it came more from the comments on that page. XD |
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Just-another-face
Posts: 324 |
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Those are likely instances where the Japanese don't want to be told it's incorrect because they dislike being told they're wrong about anything. They probably don't want some foreigner who actually knows English better to suggest correcting anything in their precious anime. |
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Herald Of JOJO
 Posts: 144 Location: Malaysia |
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Alright, thanks for the answer, man. I actually love Terry's Engrish in KoF. Are you okay? |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11508 |
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This is the one that did me in. Just one little letter... I think my neighbors thought I was having convulsions. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2593 |
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I get mild nerdly amusement out of uncovering Engrish in backgrounds and signs like classicalzawa and comparing to the "official" translation. A recent example hidden by altered Romanji letters at the entrance to Livira in Danmachi Ep12, says "The trade welcome to join us" but officially "Welcome Fellows". Also in Ep1 the tavern sign reads "Hostess of Sivtility" but is supposed to be "Benevolent Mistress". I guess they were going for "Hostess of Civility". Also for the curious, the other script used in Danmachi is a bizarre distortion of hiragana characters.
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vanfanel
 Posts: 1252 |
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I have beheld with my own eyes a sailboating goods store called "Break Wind," a beauty parlor called "Snob," a bar called "Punched Birth," a liquor store simply called "Booze," and a cancer treatment center called "Chemotopia."
But since turnabout's fair play, a little googling on Japanese sites will also turn up a wealth of photos showing Japanese T-shirts worn by or marketed to non-Japanese, including slogans like: 糞 - poop 変態 - pervert 痔 - hemorrhoids 自己嫌悪 - self-loathing 痴漢注意 - beware of gropers 今の主流:出来ちゃった結婚 - the current mainstream: shotgun wedding 婚活 - actively seeking a spouse 日本人彼女募集 - seeking a Japanese girlfriend 毎日が地獄です - every day is hell やわらか冷凍 - soft frozen (?) 尊皇攘夷 - Revere the Emperor, Expel the Foreign Barbarians  <a political slogan used by anti-Shogunate revolutionaries in the mid-19th century--try wearing that one to Immigration when it's time to renew your visa!)
One more I saw at a con: 私は愚かなアメリカ人です。何でも買う。 - I'm a stupid American. I'll buy anything. Was the dealer providing a translation? Of course not! |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Oh wow, I'd love to get shirts like that, and I could tell people what it actually means.
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