Fashionable English Flubs in Japan

In travelling, a wonder resort!

Here you see the problem.   English is fashionable, but people really don't speak it very well.   OK then, let's not sweat it, let's just translate word-for-word straight from Japanese to English and hope no-one notices anything wrong.

Result:  lots of really nice sounding words which somehow don't mean anything.

Sure, they spelled "freak" wrong, but the rest is logical, isn't it?   These people are freaks of guitars or, in other words, "guitar's freaks".   These musical instruments use electricity, don't they, so they must be "electric musical instruments".

Guitars Freek

The Love Boat was the worst show on TV because the directors, writers and actors were all drug addled!   I always thought so, but I was never brave enough to say it until I saw this!   Here is the very store where they bought their drugs!   And if you think that they're using the phrase "drug store" in the American sense of a pharmacy, take a look inside - I see stilettos, mini skirts and mirror balls, but there isn't an aspirin in sight!

Love Boat drug store

For some reason which I can't fathom, the butchering of English in the name of trendiness is particularly common in the Japanese beverage industry.

Here's a very mild example - there are no grammatical errors, in fact no mistakes at all - but do they really expect us to believe that a can of cold tea can turn us into something new?   Or that tea is somehow a "gift of love" from nature?   If she loves me so much, then why did she hit me with a hurricane?

tea, a natural gift of love
body profitable water If that was an over-statement, then this one comes pretty close to being an under-statement.   Still, how could I resist buying this water, especially since it's so obviously body profitable?

Good Lord!   Any advertising executive in the West who suggested calling a canned drink "sweat" would be laughed out of the industry.   And any consumer who bought a can would need his head read.

Mind you, if it is "body request" like they say, then perhaps I've been a little too harsh - after all, if my body requests it then who am I to say no?

pocari sweat

Yes, I understand what you mean.   I think.  (a special note for American readers: "soft drink" is British English for "soda", it doesn't really mean that the drink is soft - though perhaps they really did mean that the special breaktime is much comfortable because the drink is so soft).

fresh drinking makes your special breaktime much comfortable
flavorous and delicious communication

Here we go, this is the ultimate in mutilation of the English language (as if we weren't already doing it so well by ourselves) - if a word doesn't exist, then make it up!

And with that thought in mind, I wish you happy viewage of the rest of this website!

Just when you thought the English couldn't get worse, get ready for the Funny Japanese Signs page, and the Japanese Restaurant page.