Dodgy "Neehawnese"...

elvenscout742

I have for a long time been very much disturbed by what seems to be a systematic attempt by many native English-speakers (usually with no knowledge of French or German, much less Japanese) to portray the Japanese as linguistically incompetent due to the comical nature of some English-language signs in Japan.

I for one admire them for even bothering to put so much of any foreign language up all over the place. I see virtually no signs in Japanese here (even at touristy places, a lot of the time).

However, despite the relative lack of any attempt on the part of mainstream media to use the Japanese (or Chinese) language, proportionally much more dodgy, idiotic attempts at these languages find their way onto all parts of the bodies of various Westerners in the form of "Your name in the Chinese alphabet" (or some other such nonsense) tattoos...

And so, inspired by the content of http://www.hanzismatter.com/, I am here setting up this thread to poke fun at laughable examples of Japanese used for "cool" effect.

(Sorry for any apparent off-topic-ness of the above. This is really for things Japanese, but it's largely the same problem as with Chinese.)

First example coming right up after these short messages...

(BTW: The title is my attempt at a corresponding reference to "Engrish" of which term I am not particularly fond. It's based on a "phonetic" spelling of the Japanese name for Japan, or such as a so atrociously non-phonetic language as English could muster.)

elvenscout742

I loved this!

(I have a clearer picture of a slightly different toy of the same range, but it's on my phone and the laptop I'm on now apparently doesn't like camera-phone memory cards of that type...)

I was in Toymaster helping my mother with some business dealings when I came across this gem.

Explanation: The Japanese katakana here is ファストトフリオス (Fasuto to Furiosu). This is wrong on several levels.
First, it simply is not the Japanese title (Wild Speed X3: TOKYO DRIFT).
Second, it uses the Japanese for "and" (to) in an English context, and spells it in katakana as though it were a foreign word. This is apparently a pet peeve of the relatively few Japanese who make fun of it. (Here)
Third, the Japanese would, if anything of the sort, be more like ファスト・アンド・フューリアス (Fasuto ando Fyuuriasu), which when pronounced correctly actually sounds something like the English (the "official" katakana was clearly chosen based on spelling rather than pronunciation).

Please note: This is not meant as either an endorsement or a criticism of the original films, with which I am not familiar, and would not presume to judge. I am not, however, interested in the slightest in seeing them.

(This one works too, but it's still not mine.)