Language Log

Enigmatic East Asian sign:

From Mark Swofford in Taiwan:

In sending along the photograph below, Geoff Dawson writes:

I find it hard to believe it takes nine characters. Curious as to what they really say.

From a furniture shop in South Melbourne Australia.

From Francis Miller:

With apologies for the glare from the plastic covering, this sign comes from the canteen at Lingnan University in Hong Kong:

Tim Frost found this sign last (southern hemisphere) summer at a lakeside in Argentina, near San Martin de los Andes.

Still more fun (see parts 1 and 2 on Chinglish examples from WeChat).

(source)

More fun with Chinglish examples from WeChat (see part 1 here).

Yantai

(source)

Photographs by Mark Swofford from Fuxing District of Taoyuan City:

Diana Zhang was in Lima, Peru last week, and this is what she saw:

Video from Douyin: 

Xiaowan Cai received this picture from a friend of hers who is on exchange from Oxford University at Kyoto University.  Everything in all four languages on the sign looks pretty normal, except that there is a not easily detectable, extraordinary gaffe — or ingenious tour de force — in the Chinese.

Mark Swofford sent in this photograph of a clever, curious sign at an automobile repair shop in Taiwan: