Thought that being photographers You probably move around and the following excerpt serve well as educational or briefing remedy.
I received this via a translation company I work for sometimes.
Have fun!
Peeter
Translation problems Here are some signs and notices written in English that were discovered throughout the world. You have to give the writers an 'E' for Effort.
In a Tokyo Hotel:
Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such a thing is please not to read notis.
In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
In a Leipzig elevator:
Do not enter lift backwards, and only when lit up.
In a Belgrade hotel elevator:
To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.
In a Paris hotel elevator:
Please leave your values at the front desk.
In a hotel in Athens:
Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.
In a Yugoslavian hotel:
The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
In a Japanese hotel:
You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.
In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from Russian Orthodox monastery:
You are welcome to visit the cemetary where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.
In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers:
Not to perambulate the corriders during the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.
On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.
On the menu of a Polish hotel:
Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion.
Outside a Hong Kong tailer shop:
Ladies may have a fit upstairs.
In a Bangkok dry cleaners:
Drop your trousers here for best results.
Outside a Paris dress shop:
Dresses for street walking.
In a Rhodes tailor shop:
Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.
From the Soviet Weekly:
There will be a Moscow Exhibition of Arts by 150,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.
A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest:
It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.
In a Zurich hotel:
Because of the impropriety of entertaining guests of the opposite sex in the bedroom, it is suggested that the lobby be used for this purpose.
In an advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.
In a Rome laundry:
Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.
In a Czechoslovakin tourist agency:
Take one of our horse-driven city tours - we guarantee no miscarriages.
Advertisement for donkey rides in Thailand:
Would you like to ride on your own ass?
In a Swiss mountain inn:
Special today -- no ice cream.
In a Bangkok temple:
It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner if dressed as a man.
In a Tokyo bar:
Special cocktails for the ladies with nuts.
In a Copenhagen airline ticket office:
We take your bags and send them in all directions.
On the door of a Moscow hotel room:
If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.
In a Norwegian cocktail lounge:
Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
In a Budapest zoo:
Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.
In the office of a Roman doctor:
Specialist in women and other diseases.
In an Acapulco hotel:
The manager has personally passed all the water served here.
In a Tokyo shop:
Our nylons cost more than common, but you'll find they are best in the long run.
From a Japanese information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner:
Cooles and Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.
From a brochure of a car rental firm in Tokyo:
When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.
Two signs from a Mojorcan shop entrance:
English well speaking Here speeching American.
1. Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."
2. Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick."
3. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.
4. In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
5. The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem-Feeling Free", was translated into the Japanese market as "When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."
6. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people can't read English.
7. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
8. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I saw the potato" (la papa).
9. In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into "Schweppes Toilet Water."
10. Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave," in Chinese.
11. We all know about GM's Chevy Nova meaning "won't go" in Spanish markets, but did you know that Ford had a similar problem in Brazil with the Pinto? Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals". Ford renamed the automobile Corcel, meaning "horse."
12. Hunt-Wesson introduced Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos. Later they found out that in slang it means "big breasts."
13. Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong man to make a "tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."
14. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "it won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." Instead, the company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."
15. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth."
16. In Central American Spanish, the name of our Mexican restaurant "Chi-Chi's" literally means "titties."
17. Some folks from England got a huge laugh from the name of an airline back then: The Trump Shuttle (Donald Trump's airline). They said in England, "Trump" translated into "fart"!
18. And finally, not even Nike is exempt. Nike has a television commercial for hiking shoes that was shot in Kenya using Samburu tribesmen. The camera closes in on one tribesman who speaks in native Maa. As he speaks, the Nike slogan "Just do it" appears on the screen. Lee Cronk, an anthropologist at the University of Cincinnati, says the Kenyan is really saying, "I don't want these. Give me big shoes." Says Nike's Elizabeth Dolan, "We thought nobody in America would know what he said."
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