sweasel.com

When I was stationed in Japan, Mrs Fert and I joked about the viability of some gaijin starting a business correcting/Americanizing Japanese Engrish stereo instructions, clothing tags/instructions like the one above, furniture assembly instructions, product descriptions, etc. Not translating Japanese to English, but stuff like your tag.
Never did anything about it. Looks like the field is still wide open.

That’s a very entertaining piece of marketing, Stoaty! Of course it’s Chinese but I really don’t think it started out that way. There are SO many English buzzwords in there that I have a hard time believing it didn’t start out in English, then got translated to Mandarin, then translated back to something English-ish. Fascinating melange, that!

Does anybody have any ideas about what that “red-powder” is supposed to mean? I mean, I’ve heard the term “bosom buddy” and variants but I’m at a loss when it comes to that there red-powder.

I’ve been reviewing a Mainframe programming site that uses better English than this, but has all the telltale indicators of having been written by either an Indian who learned English as his 2nd language or an Eastern European.

I leaned towards Indian because the techies seem fond of the words “essentially” and “basically” when explaining things.

Still, I’m pretty much at the level of “hello”, “Thankyou”
and “mucho queso” when I try to speak someone else’s language so I shan’t criticize.

LOL. This grammar sounds like what’s regularly posted at CNN, MSNBC or WaPo.

Isn’t English a wonderful language. Badly written, nearly incomprehensible, yet we do understand the message. Ok—that RED-POWDER BOSOM FRIEND sounds like a Chinese idiom. But I wonder if it just means your best friend—the one you share your rouge or blusher with, while giggling in the mirror.

We need Subotai Bahadur 🙂

Yeah, I get the gist of everything but the RED-POWDER BOSOM FRIEND. Is it a ChasingTheDragon and getting felt up reference?

I had regular correspondence with a business counterpart in Asia that used “Settle down and save your time,” as their Complimentary-close. Never figured it out.

Shoot, you don’t need to go to translations from China to read crappy misused English, bad grammar and lousy spelling, just look at the headlines or the articles published in the Daily Mail.

My favorite mis-translation occurred when I worked for EDS.
We had a young guy from “Mainland China” as a GM employee in the office and he complimented a young, attractive, stylish and appearance conscious woman in the cube area after she came in fresh from outside, all rosy cheeked from the chill air that day (yes, it gets into the 20’s here in North Texas, sometimes).

“You look very chappy!” he said with a smile.
We didn’t get it – chappy? What was chappy?
He pulled out a small but thick Chinese to English dictionary to get the correct translation.

“Chubby”.

The Chinese dictionary roughly translated (I’m recalling from 30+ years ago) said “Chubby” – meant rosy cheeked, happy, full of life.

Mary Franics was not amused.

This reminds me of the Japanese foray into English ads back in the 70’s. Having sent their kids to uni in America, they returned home ready to write English copy…it was hilarious. Of course being orokana gaikoku we constantly giggled over product names anyhoo. My two favs

Krap! Crackerjack-like rice cracker mix very tasty
Calpis soy milk drink sort of like a watery vanilla Yakuit

I mean, come on…could you roll up at the local Konbini and grab a bag of krap and a cold Calpis with a straight face? I’m sure they thought we were okashii…yes we were young and stupid.

note: a search for Krap may return some NSFW sites????