Nordic amorous room
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@JDMayger May 4:
Any Nordics in China want to explain what’s going on here? @brandhane ? pic.twitter.com/xlaRJtyfxk
— James Mayger (@JDMayger) May 4, 2021
The sign for 9F-14F reads:
Běi Ōu fēngqíng fáng
北欧风情房
Northern European / Nordic style rooms
They misparsed it as:
Běi Ōu fēng qíngfáng
北欧风情房
Northern European / Nordic style love rooms
It all depends upon what kind of room you're looking for.
Selected readings
"Segmentation of Chinese terms" (2/6/14)
"Gourmet Chinese cookshop" (2/27/14)
"Pinyin memoirs" (8/13/16)
"Mandarin tongue twister" (10/20/20)
[h.t. Geoff Wade]
wanda said,
May 5, 2021 @ 3:38 pm
What are "Nordic-style rooms" supposed to be, anyway? Saunas?
Gregory Kusnick said,
May 5, 2021 @ 5:31 pm
I'm guessing Norwegian wood paneling and no chairs.
Scott P. said,
May 5, 2021 @ 5:50 pm
What are "Nordic-style rooms" supposed to be, anyway?
Gray walls and nobody talks to each other?
Victor Mair said,
May 5, 2021 @ 6:12 pm
Think Scandinavian. You know, like IKEA.
Gordon Campbell said,
May 5, 2021 @ 7:14 pm
The Beatles had a song about it – Norwegian Wood.
cliff arroyo said,
May 6, 2021 @ 12:56 am
I feel like a dope for being the one who has to ask, but….
"Childrens parent-child room"
What?
John Swindle said,
May 6, 2021 @ 10:12 am
Maybe "children's/parent-child room." This may be a furniture store, especially with the hints about IKEA.
On the Hawaiian island of Oahu there's a late-20th-century subdivision with Hawaiian street names that mean Dining Room Street, Bathroom Street, Storage Room Street, and more. They could all be furnished with stuff from this store.
Victor Mair said,
May 6, 2021 @ 10:33 am
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.
Mark said,
May 6, 2021 @ 11:12 am
Hmm, the English translation on the sign is clearly courtesy of Google or some other online translation; my Chinese is pretty rusty but it looks like it says something like "Children-Parent(al) Rooms" (but I may also be parsing it wrong) which maybe is just an idiomatic way of saying "family rooms". From the fact that these rooms extend over multiple floors I am going to guess that these signs are from a hotel, and that the lower floors have family rooms with beds for parents and children, and the upper floors are Nordic style. But I would like it if it were a giant IKEA-type store!
Chu said,
May 6, 2021 @ 4:49 pm
No the parsing error is at a higher level
Should be
北欧/风情 // 房
But wrongly interpreted by machine as
北欧 // 风情/房
风情 means '(regional) style/flavor' but also 'amorous, etc.'
Bathrobe said,
May 6, 2021 @ 7:18 pm
I did a post on 风情 fēngqíng and the weird ways it can be translated about 18 years ago:
Style Plaza or Amorous Square?
My surmises on the reason for the mistake weren't totally on the mark, though.
Bathrobe said,
May 6, 2021 @ 7:59 pm
Bad link. Should be:
Style Plaza or Amorous Square
Hopefully this should work.
Victor Mair said,
May 6, 2021 @ 10:48 pm
See also here:
"Childrens parent-child room"
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=50939
Victor Mair said,
May 7, 2021 @ 6:23 am
Chu's parsing is elegant, and I like it, but:
"北欧风" 35,000,000 ghits
"情房" 262,000 ghits