What's up Guilherme???: Let's speak ENGRISH....

Hiya mates...

This topic was posted 'cuz I met a Japanese girl last Saturday who is studying Portuguese in Brazil and who KNOWS (or at least she thinks she does so) English, anyway, my special thanks to Shiharo Yamazaki who helped me to create this topic... =]

Engrish can be simply defined as the humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product design, it can be found all over the world, but the vast majority of the really funny and creative Engrish is from Japan.

English is used as a design element in Japanese products and advertising to give them a modern look and feel (or just to "look cool"). There is often no attempt to try to get it right, nor do the vast majority of the Japanese population (= consumers) ever attempt to read the English design element in question.

Regarding the Japanese use of English, common mistakes are most often attributed to the vast differences in their phonetic and grammatical structures as well as how the languages are used.

The most common mistakes due to phonetic differences are as follows:

1. The inability to differentiate between "R" and "L" (the Japanese "R" being closer to the Spanish "R" with a trill sound); samples found within Engrish.com include "Eric Crapton"and the word "Engrish" itself. Other famous examples include the misuse of the word "erection" (instead of "election").

2. The pronunciation "shi" (or "shee") vs. "see". Common mistakes found are variations on "shit" vs. "sit" - there have been a number of reported sightings of "baby-shitter" in place of "baby-sitter", and you can find one instance of "shituation" in place of "situation" within Engrish.com.

3. Lack of “th” or “v” sounds in Japanese - "th" is often replaced with an "s" sound, while "b" is most often substituted for "v".

4. The Japanese inability to pronounce various vowel sounds found in the English language. The Japanese language contains only 5 basic vowel sounds: "a" as in "ah", "i" as in "eee", "u" pronounced like "ooo", "e" pronounced like "eh", and "o" pronounced like "oh". Such confusion in vowel sounds can lead to examples like "fack you!" in place of "f*ck you", etc.

Grammatical mistakes vary but there are a few common errors that English teachers in Japan see on a daily basis:

1. Using a noun as a verb with "Let's" as in: "Let's beer" or "Let's Kiosk"

2. Redundant wording such as: "Let's play with me!"

3. Dispense with connecting words. Example: "I feel Coke"

You must be thoroughly bored by now.... no more examples, see the pics below