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RE: Crazy Chinglish of the Day #2 | No Swimming In Spit Bucket
How many llamas (or people) does it take to fill this bucket?
In all seriousness though: could you explain the etymology of said spit bucket? Is that a possible translation at all? I can't read Chinese unfortunately so I've been wondering for years where those funny Chinglish phrases come from.
This sign and other signs in China are due to some locals who may not be familiar with English but may want to include English on a food menu, warning sign, and etc. It's also a result of not consulting a native speaker or fluent English speaker to verify if the English writing is understandable or makes sense. It's also a result of just using language translator apps that aren't 100% accurate all of the time. Sometimes the apps produce weird answers. So, quite often expats who are wandering around China, come across some funny Chinese to English translations.
In this sign, it really only says "no swimming".
The sign only has 1 and 2.
It is very interesting..No swimming is really easy to comprehend...why do they have to put spit bucket...yeah!!I agree they only rely on translation which is sometimes not correctly translated...
Most of the time it's just language mistakes. When I try to use google translator, bing translator and baidu translate, sometimes it shows me some very bizarre language answers.
yes!!that's why..I always remind my student don't rely too much on those translator engine..
So it would, in fact, just translate as "swimming is prohibited" :D Thanks! Looking forward to more Chinglish!
You're right, that is a better way of translating it. Perhaps this can just turn into a funny but educational Chinese learning experience when I post other ones.