Let's Vitamin!

...and other funny Japanglish!

As you may or may not know Japan is always looking to expand on the country's use of English. This coupled with the fascination with written English means there's lots of English text all over Japan. That's cool right, but as the country's English is still improving this often results in phrases that either  make no sense or have very interesting intonations!

The fascination with English text is not so different to that of the Western fascination with Kanji, where many people have no awareness of the meaning but just like the "cool"/"different" text, leading to people walking around with oh so introspective kanji tattoos like "Miso soup" or "bridge"! So the fascination I understand, what I don't understand is how big corporations or respectable businesses end up with hilariously bad English slogans/phrases for which they could easily have had checked by a native speaker to avoid said hilariously bad English! For some it is quite literally like they plucked a few English words out of the dictionary and added them for an "exotic" appeal, making for some hilarious  moments for us native speakers! So without further ado, here's some of the best English faux pas I have come across in Japan....

1. Let's Vitamin
Why not start with the slogan from the title name and dive straight in with "Let's Vitamin" a slogan for a drink filled with, you guessed it.. vitamins! Who would have thought the word vitamin could be used as a verb! And how exactly does one vitamin?? Is it a passive or active state?? Is it done alone or with others?? What happens when you do in fact vitamin?? So many questions to be answered!


2. Studio Maggot
I imagine the first thing that comes to mind when you read this name is a studio for maggots, or something equally maggot related..But no in reality it is actually a ballet studio for  young children!! Because of course what better word to describe cute budding little ballerinas... The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is poor translation and what they were actually looking for was something like caterpillar or butterfly (or at least I hope that's what happened!) But alas! Maggot is what they're stuck with, at least it stands out I guess...


3. Patisserie Tooth Tooth
Like Studio Maggot I can only guess that this is a case of poor translation again, where they wanted something along the lines of "sweet tooth" but instead ended up with the strange and odd "tooth tooth" name. Whilst I don't doubt that this patisserie has wonderful treats in my imagination it consists of pastries and cakes containing hidden teeth just waiting to be found by that lucky unsuspecting customer!


4. Beefman
This one is not as bad in terms of translation problems and strange meaning, but it still made me laugh, especially with the image that accompanies the name! Beefman is a Yakiniku restaurant in case you're mislead by said image and think it's a gym! I suppose what they're going for here is eat at their Yakiniku restaurant and you will turn into a big beefy moose/man, capable of holding dumbbells but seriously lacking in the leg gains!

5. Tanning Studio Blacky
Yep, you read correctly... a place that darkens your skin tone named Blacky... That's not controversial at all... *insert shock face emoji*.When I came across this place I had one of those "Oh Japan, whyyy.." moments. So unaware and out of touch that you come across places like this!


6. Hairdresser's Truck
Now this one I have no idea about. I'm not sure what relevance "trucks" have to hairdressing and so am baffled at the name choice! Maybe they specialise in truck style hairdos! I also like the fact that it states they do "hair and eyelash"... "eyelash", yep come and get just the one eyelash attended to ladies, make those other eyelashes jealous!


7. Various Clothing Slogans
I have also come across numerous t-shirts, jumpers and bags on people with funny slogans which for obvious reasons I couldn't take photos of, but here are some I remember reading and laughing at!

"This bag is happy dream"- Wonderful, I needed a bag that could double as "happy dream".
"Get on wave of my life"- Ok, will do.
"Wagwan! Smile at me"- *Insert crying with laughter emoji* p.s this one also featured a baby wearing sunglasses!
"Sexy Travelling"- hahaha
"STREAM APPREHEND VOGUE"- No words, thoughts or explanations for this one.

And one I literally saw today...

"Just a lemon tree"- What does that even mean?!?!

There you have it just some of the interesting and funny Japanglish I have encountered, and I don't doubt I will encounter much more!!!