More Amusing Signs

Here is another post from my amusing sign collection; click here to see the first one. I love taking photos of signs where the meaning has been lost in translation, and just about any other sign that I find amusing. Translating from one language to another is very difficult, so I’m certainly not poking fun at any one culture or translator. Rather, I just want to share a few photos of funny signs to make you smile.

Some entertaining translational mishaps from restaurants:

Translating and mastering a language is quite challenging, and we have certainly had our share of translational mishaps. One such incident happened at a tollbooth in France many years ago, before we lived there. We pulled up to the kiosk and the directions said to insert “une billet” but we didn’t have one. TheTravelsketcher was in the driver’s seat and pushed the call button. Once the attendant came on the line, I tried to communicate in my limited French (at that time), saying: “je n’ai pas une billet” but in the stress of the moment it came out as “je n’aime pas une billet“. There was silence on the other end. In the meantime, cars were lining up behind us honking and people were yelling, adding to the stress of the situation. Terry noticed a woman approaching our car with a credit card in her hand. He quickly inserted ours into the “billet” slot and voila, the gate opened and we were on our way again. Rather than saying “I don’t have a ticket” it came out as “I don’t like a ticket”. No wonder there was silence on the other end of the line, the attendant probably thought we were crazy.

We have all had situations like these and it’s best just to laugh about them. Getting stuck at the tollbooth was stressful at the time, but we laugh about it now; I suspect that the gate attendant is still laughing about it as well.

May you find amusement in your day!

Tricia