Funny Engrish Pictures

Funny Engrish Pictures that Amuse Will and Guy

Engrish is the name for the occidental writing which appears on Japanese signs.  The companies or their sign writers wish to give a product cachet, but the result is a funny English phrase.  To the Japanese readers, the Engrish words are meaningless since most speak English about as well as most westerners speak Japanese.  Little do they know that the English translation has a fatal flaw.

• Engrish in the Restrooms
• Parking?
• Menus Are a Great Source of Engrish
• Don't laugh - my suitcase is in there somewhere
• Carefully Slip and Fall Down
• Please do not smoke while walking - Classic Engrish logic
• Shooting Yourself in Foot?
• No Dying? Chinglish Engrish
• Luminous Nose - Engrish meets nosense

Engrish in the Restrooms

I first saw this Engrish dialect back in the 1960s; a company I worked imported goods from Japan.  The written correspondence occasionally had the sort of faux pas you see on this page; at that time I thought it was an ex-Brit having a joke, but now I can see that by 2008 the Engrish disease is rampant in Japan itself.  Incidentally, you may have heard of Franglais, those funny French ---> English translations, they probably pre-date Engrish.

Parking?  Then our advice is avoid windows No.2

Please get a punch at Window No. 2 - No thank you!

Menus Are a Great Source of Engrish

Some Engrish is also a Spoonerism where they transpose the first letters of two words to make funny phrase, for example: Soul of Ballad  (Bowl of Salad).

Warter Supplies

Another brand of Engrish is where a word is spelt phonetically as in warter, or when the incorrect of word is used.  One of our favourites seen on a barber's shop:  'Speciality Hair Routes'. 

Don't laugh - my suitcase is in there somewhere

'Luggage Disembowel' is a classic type of Engrish where the writer has not quite got the translation correct.  Judging by the sign they probably meant 'Lost Luggage' or 'Left-luggage Office'.

Do Not Little

Bin there and got the tea shirt!

Carefully Slip and Fall Down

Carefully fall to the river.  (These funny Engrish pictures are so polite.)

Another feature of funny Engrish pictures is that while all the words are correct, the sequence does not make sense

Please do not smoke while walking - Classic Engrish logic

While Engrish is primarily associated with Japanese mis-translations, the term is now used to encompass funny malapropisms from other languages.

Kids' Swear - They Sure Do

Surprisingly, most Engrish seen on signs and especially on garments is not an attempt to communicate.  Japanese designers merely use English as a vehicle to give products a modern look and feel.  Incidentally, you can see Engrish in reverse by the addition of Japanese or Chinese characters to hats, shirts and tattoos found in English speaking countries.

Shooting Yourself in Foot?

Engrish example - Con Shop

No Dying?  Engrish has also spread to China, where it known as Chinglish

Engrish has distinct forms, 'drying --> 'dying' is a classic Malapropism.  On close inspection I saw a second example of Engrish in the above notice.  Not only is there 'Keep table cleaned after dying', but also there is: 'Thanks for your corporation'.  On the menu was: 'Hot Bowel of Soup'

Use No Hooks - Handle with Cake

Will and Guy always thought the Japanese were so courteous - Until we saw....

When carrying a parasol please be careful to get in the way of other people around you.

Give me a Winner any day

Funny Engrish - Color Loser

Luminous Nose - Engrish meets nosense.

The Dong with a Luminous Nose by Edward Lear

When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights;
When the angry breakers roar,
As they beat on the rocky shore;
When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the Hills on the Chankly Bore:

Then, through the vast and gloomy dark,
There moves what seems a fiery spark,
A lonely spark with silvery rays
Piercing the coal-black night,
A meteor strange and bright:
Hither and thither the vision strays,
A single lurid light.

Slowly it wanders - pauses - creeps -
Anon it sparkles - flashes and leaps;
And ever as onward it gleaming goes
A light on the Bong-tree stem it throws.
And those who watch at that midnight hour
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as the wild light passes along, 'The Dong! - the Dong!
The wandering Dong through the forest goes!
The Dong! the Dong!
The Dong with a luminous Nose!'

Long years ago
The Dong was happy and gay,
Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl
Who came to those shores one day.
For the Jumblies came in a Sieve, they did -
Landing at eve near the Zemmery Fidd
Where the Oblong Oysters grow,
And the rocks are smooth and gray.
And all the woods and the valleys rang
With the Chorus they daily and nightly sang -

' Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.'

Happily, happily passed those days!
While the cheerful Jumblies staid;
They danced in circlets all night long,
To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong,
In moonlight, shine, or shade.
For day and night he was always there
By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair,
With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair.
Till the morning came of that fateful day
When the Jumblies sailed in their Sieve away,
And the Dong was left on the cruel shore
Gazing - gazing for evermore -
Ever keeping his weary eyes on
That pea-green sail on the far horizon -
Singing the Jumbly Chorus still
As he sat all day on the grass hill -

'Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.'

But when the sun was low in the West,
The Dong arose and said, 'What little sense I once possessed
Has quite gone out of my head!' And since that day he wanders still
By lake and forest, marsh and hill,
Singing - ' O somewhere, in valley or plain
Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!
For ever I'll seek by lake and shore
Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!' Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,
Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks,
And because by night he could not see,
He gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree
On the flowery plain that grows.
And he wove him a wondrous Nose,
A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!
Of vast proportions and painted red,
And tied with cords to the back of his head.
- In a hollow rounded space it ended
With a luminous lamp within suspended,
All fenced about
With a bandage stout
To prevent the wind from blowing it out;
And with holes all round to send the light,
In gleaming rays on the dismal night.

And now each night, and all night long,
Over those plains still roams the Dong!
And above the wail of the Chimp and Snipe
You may hear the wail of his plaintive pipe,
While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain,
To meet with his Jumbly Girl again;
Lonely and wild - all night he goes -
The Dong with a luminous Nose!
And all who watch at the midnight hour,
From Hall or Terrace, or Lofty Tower,
Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,
Moving along through the dreary night, 'This is the hour when forth he goes,
The Dong with the luminous Nose!
Yonder - over the plain he goes;
He goes;
He goes!

The Dong with a luminous Nose!' Edward Lear 

Footnote:
Please send us your funny Engrish pictures

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See funny Engrish phrases, also how to speak....

● Speak Engrish   ● Engrish PPT   ● Speak Chinese   ● Speak New Zealand   ● Franglais   ● Home

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