"Because you are dangerous, you must not enter"

A couple of good signs from the always enjoyable Engrish.com. Link

[#1 posted by fightingsquid , October 15, 2007 11:48 AM]

I was in Beijing last month and discovered this anti fun sign posted in Sinosteel park:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fightingsquid/1339862665/in/set-72157601896253212/

[#2 posted by Ryan , October 15, 2007 1:41 PM]

And here's an example of English that's okay, but still something that really wouldn't fly in the States:

http://flickr.com/photos/alcarilinque/131493920/

Found in Helsinki.

[#3 posted by DJ Perl , October 15, 2007 4:40 PM]

My Hiragana is rusty, but I think the first sign reads:

"Abunai kara, haitte haikemasen."

Because it is dangerous, do not go entering.

Native Japanese speakers, please correct my bad translation.

I intend to resume studying Japanese.
Haven't figured out how to enter kana into Google's translation service yet.

[#4 posted by Tim Bovee , October 15, 2007 5:07 PM]

Mr. Perl's translation of the Japanese is close, although it would better be stated (still a literal translation): "Because it is dangerous, entering is forbidden." (Abunai kara, haitte wa ikemasen)

In Japanese, a subject can be (and usually is) implied rather than stated, and the implied subject can change several times in the course of a single sentence, without any explicit verbal signal that any change has occurred.

Fascinating language; much more supple than English. I've always felt that successfully speaking Japanese is somewhat akin to mind-reading.

[#5 posted by DJ Perl , October 15, 2007 6:09 PM]

Bovee-san, arigatou gozaimasu.

Yes, I find learning about Japanese culture to be a humbling endeavor.
So much depends on implied cultural context! So much subtlety! It is too easy for a gai-jin to get the inflection wrong and give offense without knowing it. That's what makes me most apprehensive.

It would take years of immersion in Japanese culture to even begin to scratch the surface of rudiments.
Yet, there is a gentle, elegant simplicity in the aesthetic. Beautifully paradoxical!

[#6 posted by Powers , October 15, 2007 7:47 PM]

As a Gaijin living in Japan and learning Japanese, I say just get over your J-awe and get on with it. Find a native speaker, and speak awful, simplistic Japanese. Trust me, they will be shocked and awed that you can say 今日は。Your not going to "give offense" they know you aren't a native. ;)

And speaking Japanese is actually pretty easy. I've studied for a year and a half and can carry on conversations at the Izakaya just fine. Kanji though, that's a different story.

Your never going to learn it if you are worried about messing it up.

[#7 posted by DJ Perl , October 15, 2007 9:06 PM]

Thanks for the encouragement. I guess Uma Thurman's "Kill Bill" character raised the Otaku-hood bar to near impossible levels. :-)

あぶない, でほ はいりきます!

[#8 posted by Kyle Armbruster , October 16, 2007 3:50 AM]

@Powers:

Indeed. I've lived here off and on for 10 years. I speak and read Japanese quite well (don't ask me to write kanji by hand, though--damn computers have spoiled me). The "J-awe" is sometimes enough to make me puke.

It's just a country, folks. There are people who live here. They speak a different language. If you want to learn about it, come over for a year or two. You'll get over your J-awe right quick. It'll turn into hatred in a couple months, then go back to awe, then dislike, then approval, then you won't even notice where you are. That's culture for you.

And nothing is vague. That's a myth most often propagated by Japanese people. Everything is very clear. If you ask your boss for a day off, and he sucks his teeth and says, literally, "a little...", it means you ain't going anywhere. It's all very clear; it's just that the semantic content of an utterance is not always encoded in the lexicogrammatical stream. There is often a mismatch, but that certainly isn't only true of "Oriental" languages. We do it all the time in English. For example, "could you hand me that book," doesn't mean "did you, in the past, possess the physical ability to pick that book up and hand it to me?" It means, "hand me the book."

Don't confuse the difficulty of learning a new language for the vast and awe-inspiring difference in culture. It's all just bullshit. All cultures, all languages, all people talk out their asses all the time, and the world spins happily on despite--nay, because--of it. Get out there and start blathering!

[#9 posted by inn0 , October 30, 2007 2:27 PM]

The top one is the 403 Forbidden HTTP response for my next project.