Thursday 24 November 2011

This Post is for your Convenient


What I meant by, ‘This Post is for your Convenient,’ is exactly what I meant.  It might not sound so grammatically correct to native English speakers like myself, but you can still understand the context and message behind it.  I could have written, ‘for your convenience,’ but that defeats the purpose of the topic of this post.  I’ve noticed that the longer I’ve been in Japan and the more I study Japanese, the farther I stray away from using correct English.  Not so much that I’m forgetting how to speak English all together, but mixing both Japanese and English have put me in situations where I’m left puzzled at what just came out of my mouth.  Like if I say, “grocery store I go with bike now,” I will have really meant to of said I’m going to the grocery store by bike now.  The words might be mixed up in the wrong order but you get the gist of it.  The use to English can come in unexpected forms in any foreign country.  I’ve learned that a lot of people label grammatically incorrect English as ‘Engrish,’ which can be seen quite frequently throughout Japan in the way people speak and as it is written down.

 
 
I came across this sign in a bathroom in Tokyo one afternoon and snapped a picture of it because I thought it was one of the greater uses of English that I had seen so far in Japan.   I happened to be in a handicap bathroom because the rest of the stalls were taken and was drawn to the sign immediately as it was right in front of me.  Most handicap bathrooms will have an emergency button in the stall in case of an accident and I’m use to seeing, ‘press this button in case of an emergency,’ or just simply, ‘push here for help.’  Just seeing this sign caught me off guard because I found that the words used to express the message were out of the norm for me.  You’re not necessarily depressed if you’re feeling bad in this bathroom stall, but might need to PRESS the button if you are!

 Good looks?

1 comment:

  1. Engrish is a fun topic to deal with in these posts - many students choose to do so. I love the toilet photo! Sometimes I feel as though Japanese create English by taking a complex sentence in Japanese and running it through Google Translation...

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