Editor’s Note: This article was first published at Chi-Newman.com on April 4, 2009. Chi has been nice enough to share it with our readers. I think you will chuckle a bit as you learn the difficulties of dealing with English as a second language.
I feel so blessed that when my father sent me to the French School, “Sacre Coeur,” at age five in Beijing, China, the teachers taught us grammar first. Learning about participles, gerunds, moods, cases, genders, numbers, etc., was not easy, but once they are ingrained forever in your memory, then you can speak and write correctly.
Of course English is a little easier than the Romance Languages because of the neuter gender. The word “it” made English so much easier than French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. After all, why should “the sun” be masculine and “the moon” be feminine? Chinese has no grammar at all, which makes it easier to learn, although the tones may cause some difficulty.
Lest we forget how difficult it is to master the English language, I am going to invite you to join me in laughing at attempts to write in English from around the world.
In an elevator:
- “Please leave your values at the front desk.”
In another 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.”
At some hotels:
- “The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.”
- “Special today, no ice cream.”
- “Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.”
- “English well talking. Here speeching American.”
- “Coolers and Heaters: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.”
- “Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.”
- “Take one of our horse-driven city tours. We guarantee no miscarriages.”
- “You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous composers, artists and writers are buried daily, except Thursday.”
- “The manager has personally passed all the water served here.”
Menus in restaurants:
- “Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumpling in the form of a finger, roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.”
- “Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.”
In dress and tailors’ shops:
- “Ladies may have a fit upstairs.”
- “Drop your trousers here for best results.”
- “Dresses for street walking.”
- “Order your summers suit because in big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.”
- “Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.”
In a dentist shop:
- “Teeth extracted by the latest methodists.”
Well that is all. As I said: “English is difficult!”
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What great memories of China you awaken! We could have worked in Beijing the whole year before the Olympics, fixing all the hilarious English signs. Of course we often made even the stolid rural Chinese break out in laughter with our stumbling attempts at their language.
Miss Chi Newman you wrote another good story. I laughed a lot about your sayings. I guess we think english is so easy because we grew up in it, but maybe not. The pictures were good too. Did you get those in china? Did you take them? Is there really a bridge in china that says don’t swim on the bridge? That is funny, funny, funny. What do they do if you swim in that lake? Do you know where that picture was taken and did you go there.
I love your articles they are so funny. Keep writing more stories. You are very good.
Chi Newman has the advantage of being someone who has experienced being both someone on the outside learning the English language, and also someone who has a fluent command of the English language. That allows her to see the humor and wonder of it from both viewpoints.
Look forward to more of her wonderful, and funny articles.