Engrish T-Shirts: Unintended Meanings

I see T-shirts all the time that say things that would get you arrested in some American cities.  My friends and I wonder if the wearers have any idea what their T-shirt says, and we agree that they cannot.  And I can tell you, if anyone were to wear a T-shirt that said the same things in the local language, they’d get arrested right on the spot. 

Just the other day I was shopping at a small, local mall and I saw a plump young woman wearing an oversize blue T-shirt that said:

“I just want you to FUCK me.” 

Most of the lettering was white, with the “FUCK” in bright yellow.

This is not even an extreme example.  We see this stuff all the time. 

That same day I saw one that was not wild enough to draw legal action, but it was enough to carry a message that was probably unintended.  Probably.

This was a tight, black T-shirt on a very pretty woman in her early twenties.  She was otherwise dressed in a very short, very tight, white mini skirt and she was wearing pumps with preposterously high heels and platform soles.  The T-shirt was stretched over enormous breasts, no doubt obtained from a doctor.  The lettering was stretched to distortion over the breasts. The shirt said, in a very pleasant, playful font:

“Tickle Party.” 

Like I say, the message was “probably” unintended.  She might have been working. I always think that it’s rude of me to even venture that as a guess, but it’s a possibility.

I very much enjoy my life here.  Everything is endlessly fascinating, and living here is comfortable in all of its details.  It's always interesting, which is something that I value very much. 

Travels In Thailand: Trang

Earlier this month I had a teaching gig in Trang.  That's in the southern part of Thailand, the peninsula on the way to Malaysia.  If you know where Phuket island is, move your finger east to the coast, then south, and you get first to Krabi and then to Trang.

It's a nice place, with good weather.  It's not quite as hot as the main body of Thailand, because of the peninsula effect, large bodies of water on both sides of a narrowish strip of land.  It's a beautiful place, with pleasantly shaped green mountains (not very tall) and very nice beaches.  Not many tourists, for some reason.  All of the tourists go to Krabi, right next door.  There are a lot of snakes, bad ones, but you're not likely to run into one unless you are staying way out in the woods. 

There's a sign at the airport that says:

"A warm welcome
with a hospitality
and friendly smile"

Those articles are always trouble for English learners whose native language has no articles.

Dim Sum is breakfast choice number one in the peninsula provinces.  One of my students picked me up to take me to school on the day of my class, and on the way we stopped for breakfast at a good place.  It was a big restaurant, with fifteen tables inside and another fifteen outside, and the Dim Sum was great.  Every table was full.  All of the wait-staff wore uniform t-shirts that said on the back:

"I am server
we served fresh!"

Another case of English, served Thai style.

I stayed in a nice hotel in town, about thirty dollars.  There was hot water not only in the tub, but also in the sink.  The sink part is rare.  The TV was good, about forty channels, but very light on the English.  There was the Universal Channel (the "Law and Order Channel"), SyFy, and two sports channels.  The sports channels were a bust, one seemed to feature only rugby and the other one was showing the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament from the year 2000.  I'm always happy to find SyFy, but really there's almost never anything on SyFy that's worth watching.  A lot of those low-light ghost search shows, "there's something on the other side of the door!"  I got lucky and there was a good movie on the night that I was there to see it.  Most SyFy movies are unspeakable, but this one was pretty good.  Lucky.

Did I say, "not many tourists?"  Really, I've never seen any.  I talked to the only foreigner that I saw, at the 7-11.  She was English, and she was on a one year English teaching contract.  It's strange to me, because Krabi is literally crawling with foreigners.  I stayed there for one night a couple of years ago and the six dollar room had about twenty channels of foreign TV.  Lots of English, CNN, good sports, the Voice of America military/propaganda channel, plus channels in Dutch, Russian, Indian, Chinese, Italian and French.  It was a lot of fun listening to various young foreigners, all European, trying to talk to the manager in English.  The manager could speak English very well, but the tourists only thought that they could speak English.  Pure comedy gold.  That room had no hot water at all, but it was air-conditioned.  They kept the prices down by making the rooms so small that if you got off the bed in any direction you smacked your knees into something.  The TV was hanging on a wall.

I like Trang, the absence of Farang tourists is a big plus for me.  The more Thais know about foreign tourists, the less then like them.  I feel the same, most of these European tourists are young, have little money, and are very impolite.  (Americans can't afford the time or the money to travel.)  It was a good trip. 

You Will Be Chareed

I was in a hotel recently, somewhere in Thailand, I don't remember where just now.  There was a laminated card hanging in the room that said:

Dear Customer

Please do not use heavy items such as iron and hair straightening equipment in the room.  And damage caused or items within the room will be chareed 5000 Baht. 

It's a fair request and a fair amount for liquidated damages (5,000 Baht is  $150 or so).  And the English, they came "this close" to getting it right!  I always think:  they should have asked me to check it. 

Tranquila Relaxation Shot

This is a product of some kind, an energy drink, I think.  The language in the advertisement that I saw was either a highly entertaining use of a very personal brand of English or someone's misguided reliance on a machine translator. 

“. . . exclusively tipple guaranteed to carry far-off the palm you fancy superabundant!” 

“Our all surprised syndication of herbs and aminos is Dr. formulated and proven to commend relief, proceeds magnify cusp unusual and in annoy of raise your wisecracks!” 

Sometimes I wish they would just ask me first.  The translation software that can handle Thai/English hasn't been invented yet.  

Not It's Not: Engrish Fail

At the good market in my local mall.  It's a good place to get Farang delicacies, like beef for instance.  Most Thai people don't eat the stuff.  Taking a cue from the Chinese, they think that beef is semi-poisonous.

The Engrish Is Truly Frightening

I was treated to a couple of English tests during my recent proctoring gig. Always interesting.

Here’s a question:

Studying English is ________________ for students who wish to work for multinational corporations.

1. Scary

2. Worthwhile

(3. and 4. I don’t recall)

Almost certainly “worthwhile” was the preferred answer, but almost every paper, no exaggeration, answered “scary.” Which is true, I suppose, English is scary for most foreign students, wherever the student wishes to become employed someday.

Another question:

The water’s ____________________ looks beautiful when the sea is calm.

1. Surface

2. Pang

3. Compression

4. Crust

Here the common answer was “pang.” Like a sudden sharp pain or emotion?  Where would they have seen that word, and how does it apply to the surface of water? In all of the tests that I checked, “surface” and “crust” showed up one time each, and the rest were “pang.”

Honestly, I didn’t go through the tests in a systematic way. I usually just looked over the six or eight questions at the end, maybe some from the middle. To be fair, many of the questions in the brief first section were so easy that there were many correct answers. (“Joe _______ playing baseball yesterday.” Pick “was” from a list.) At the middle and the end though, I could rarely find even two correct answers out of the six or eight that I checked.

It’s a shame too, since English is Money these days. Speak it and you get more money, it’s easier to get a good job. No one who has taught English thinks it’s easy, let’s face it, English is hard. Check your own spelling and tell me I’m lying. It’s important though.

Luckily, my mom taught me to speak English, many years ago.

To Nite My Love

For those of us who struggle with Thai, English words spelled in the Thai alphabet are a constant source of enjoyment.  Thanks everybody!

This is a "massage and entertainment" place in Bangkok named "To Nite."  Pardon my unseemly delight. 

Fun With Language

I'm not one to throw stones, I know, living as I do in a glass house.  I know full well that when I speak Thai it is all who-done-what-and-ran all the time.  But I can't help but smile when I read some of the sentences that Asians come up with in English.

That's the real trick, making sentences in the other language.  It's very nice to know a lot of words, but sentences are a horse of a different color.  For instance, when someone says to me, "English I not good," we can see that it's not a good English sentence.  It's a pretty good Thai sentence though, "Angrit pom mai dee," not perfect but you'd get away with it.

We have signage on our elevators and in our common areas that offer advice for safe living.  Things like stay in the correct lane driving in the parking lot, and don't throw lit cigarettes off of the balconies.  Here's one that I particularly like:

"When leaving you warm up food cause to the fire.

Be careful for using the electrical equipments."   


As usual, the problems stem from the articles (of which there are none in Thai), the prepositions (which in Thai are used differently), and the verbs in general (which in English are controlled by a much more complicated grammar).