Friday, January 13, 2006

Misuse of Chinese Characters

Over the years, I have worked with many engineers from Japan, China and Korea. I am always amazed by their ability to speak two (or more) languages fluently. I feel stupid by comparison.

Still, I get a chuckle whenever I visit Engrish.com. It's a collection of unintentionally funny English phrases discovered in Japan and other Asian countries. I think it's mostly a good natured collection. Hopefully, it's not offensive to Asians.

The good news is it is just as funny when the shoe is on the other foot. Hanzi Smatter is a site "dedicated to the misuse of chinese characters in western culture". The site specializes in translating chinese characters tattooed on gullible westerners. The tattoos don't always mean what their owners think they mean.


Photo from Hanzi Smatter
 

1 comment:

Pete Lyons said...

Many of the things on Engrish aren't funny because of a mistake as much as just being weird. For example, no matter how many times I've looked at this page I still get a serious chuckle.

http://www.engrish.com/detail.php?imagename=picklelemon.jpg&category=Chocolate&date=1997-02-18