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Who doesn’t love a nice dose of messed up Engrish? Sure, it’s infantile to chuckle at spelling mistakes and rude words inappropriately used by well-meaning Japanese, but when all is said and done, it’s still funny. And after a long week of work, cold weather, spam in your inbox and having much less money in your bank account than you thought, it’s nice to take a few minutes to sit back and be a little bit silly.

Late last week, Canadian YouTuber Oz (ozzy78) published a great collection of photos taken all around Japan featuring bad English on everything from shop signs to kids’ clothes. We enjoyed the video so much that we just had to share it with you here today. It will make you laugh; it will make you cringe; it will make you wonder why on earth no one thought to consult a native speaker before going to print. Enjoy.

I think my personal favourites have to be “woody unbalance” and “dream big, create happiness”. They have a certain randomness that reminds me of my days living in Fukushima Prefecture where I regularly shopped at an interior furnishings store whose slogan “We sell a tasty life” was proudly displayed everywhere you looked. Those were tasty days…

Of course, one could argue that westerners laughing at “stupid English” is itself becoming somewhat cliché, and eventually we’re going to have to get over the fact that there are sports drinks called Sweat, but when you’ve had a tough week and need something easy to chuckle at, a little bit of messed up English is about on-par with watching episodes of that sitcom you’ve seen a hundred times before and a big, greasy slice of pizza; it’s not especially good for anyone, but it certainly hits the spot.

You can find more of Oz’s quirky videos on his YouTube channel here. Have a good weekend, guys!

Source: 海外から見た日本

Title image by RocketNews24