Language Log

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:

Outside a hotel near Sanyi, Miaoli County, Taiwan:

It's been a while since we have posted on this sub-genre of Chinglish:

My parents are touring China and spotted this very thoughtful sign…
byu/yumzau infunny

(reddit)

From an anonymous colleague:

Café de Coral Advertisement with Hong Kong Cantonese Lexical Items:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cafe de Coral (@cafedecoralhk)

(source: from their Instagram account)

Chinese signs from Quora.  Since they are rather lengthy and come with French explanations, I will depart from my usual Language Log treatment of providing Romanizations, transcriptions, and translations for the Chinese.  Instead, I will only give English translations (based mainly on Google translations of the French, with slight modifications).

En raison de la population nombreuse et du nombre insuffisant d'agents de police, les Chinois ont développé une culture unique en matière de panneaux d'avertissement intimidants :

Panneau de signalisation : "Veuillez conduire en toute sécurité, il n'y a pas d'hôpital à proximité".

Due to the large population and insufficient number of police officers, the Chinese have developed a unique culture of intimidating warning signs.

Warning sign: "Please drive safely, there is no hospital nearby".

This Chinese article is about a man who has made a living by painting slogans and ads on village walls for thirty years. Some of the slogans are rather bizarre, as may be seen by looking at the many photographs in the article.

The article says it is such a well-paying job that the man was able to buy 6 apartments in his hometown with his earnings. Painting on walls is one of the major ways to advertise or propagate goods and ideas in the countryside.

There are many examples of such signs in the article, but I couldn't understand all of them upon first glance, so I wondered if the country folk would be able to read the signs. I asked a number of my graduate students from China, and they all said, yes, the country folk not only would be able to read them, but would enjoy them and would be motivated to buy the products and services promoted by the signs.

Sol Jung, a former Penn undergrad, took this photograph more than a decade ago, but I'm only now getting around to posting on it.

There's quite a story behind the photograph and why it took me so long to write this blog post about it.  I will explain below.

Sign in Vancouver International Airport:

Segregated line-ups for vaccinated and unvaccinated international arrivals at Vancouver International Airport. Photo by Andrew Aziz. (Source)

This post is a follow-up to "Nordic amorous room" (5/5/21).  In the comments to that post, cliff arroyo remarked:

I feel like a dope for being the one who has to ask, but….

"Childrens parent-child room"

What?

He was referring to another part of the sign on which "Nordic amorous room" appears, which you can see by clicking on the title above.  I replied to him:

I was hoping that no one would ask the question that cliff arroyo did, because it's nettlesome, but since he did, I started working on a reply to it early this morning. Now that John Swindle has given us one idea of how to explain the conundrum, I feel all the more compelled to do so. Will post by this evening — within about nine hours.

Sunny Jhutti sent in this photograph of an Indian shop sign: