Thursday, June 18, 2009

Sometimes English can be tricky....

Sometimes it's a matter of grammar. Or spelling.

Sometimes it's because you use words or expressions in your native language that you simply translate into what you think it should be in English (...and Danes do that a lot...

You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid (Information to the guests at a Danish Hotel - pretty sure they meant something different...like 'ask the chambermaid for help'...)

Dane in an English pub: "Can I borrow the toilet?" (the word for 'borrow' and 'use' is the same in Danish: 'låne' - at least in this case)

The prick over the I (said by Jytte Hilden - she meant the 'dot over the i', but dot is 'prik' in Danish)

Screw down your expectations (Richard Møller Nielsen, former coach of the Danish national soccer team to the world press - he meant 'tone down' or 'lower' but the Danish word is 'skru' eller 'skrue')
)

And sometimes it's just a matter of typos.

But they can give the words a total different meaning than intended:


New style



It's amazing what you can buy...



Just in case...




There are more pictures at Engrish.com
It's nice to know that the Danes are not the only ones having problems with the English language :o)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

lmao. i am really glad to know where herpes comes from so i can avoid them. good excuse to get out of grocery shopping. :)

Natazzz said...

LOL. It's amazing the mistakes people make.

When I was in Barcelona the menu translations were so bad and weird sometimes I just looked at the Spanish to understand what I'd be eating.