Translations Are Hard!

As we’ve made our way across the country, one of the things that has been a huge source of amusement for us is mistakes in transactions from Chinese to English. Executing these translations, to any extent, is incredibly difficult, and props to everyone who does. I know if I tried mine would be far worse than these. Sometimes, however, they don’t quite turn out as planned and the new sentence or phrase makes no sense at all. From menu options to information plaques at museums to caution signs in our showers, here are some of the best bad translations we came across.

The first one we saw was in our hotel in Hong Kong, and started off our search for funny translations. It was a plaque stuck IN our shower reading: 

'Floor have water,Be Careful of Slip'

This stone at a mountain overlook told us to 'taking care not of seats but taking pictures of fun' which we couldn't even decipher enough to figure out what it was supposed to say:

 'taking care not of seats but taking pictures of fun'

A temple we visited had an 'Accesssidle Passage:'

'Accesssidle Passage'

In one bathroom was a sign telling us 'the toilet paper into the cage!!'

'the toilet paper into the cage!!'

And then right above 'the cage' it told us 'please do not trample:' 

 'please do not trample' 

We ate lunch at one restaurant where the menu was full of crazy translations.  Here are some of the highlights: 

'Hand made gluten'

'There are fish smell of cooking'

'delicious bath chap'

'Let a person enchanted boiled fish'

'Dry fry the garlic smell hairtail'

"Hello yes waiter I'd like to order the delicious bath chap please!" - we spent more time laughing at these names than picking our dishes I think.

This milk tea shop made sure we knew their tea 'is safely drink:' 

'is safely drink' 

At the top of jade dragon snow mountain we were warned that 'livestock will hurt you please don't close to:'

'livestock will hurt you please don't close to'

This store was the best kind of party ... a 'bread party:' 

'bread party' 

This one just made no sense at all ... 'probable cause for hate, fate, and destinyinsatiable.' It sounded like the title of a terrible rock album: 

'probable cause for hate, fate, and destinyinsatiable'

Finally for this post - there were many many more - is this greeting card from our hotel in YuanYang, warning us to 'please use the towel carefully.dont smudge it:'

'please use the towel carefully.dont smudge it'