There exists a blog called “Japan for the uninvited”. I found one of its articles linked from a fairly reliable group blog. That particular entry was a rehash of claims from other English-language sites about Japan, and was relatively accurate.

The next three entries that I read were complete nonsense. This short-lived blog was created by someone looking for ad impressions, who didn’t pay any attention to accuracy.

[note for the blogger: when the members of a band range in age from 14 to 24, describing them all as “pre-pubescent” is a slight categorization error. Also, when the high point of your site is the unintentional hilarity of the phrase “discrete sex”, find a new hobby.]

You are Sony. You are having an event to celebrate a cool new Playstation 3 game. Its name? Little Big Planet. Which celebrities do you hire to emcee the event?

The littlest woman and biggest man you can find, actress/singer Mari Yaguchi (4’9”) and kickboxer Hong-man Choi (7’2”).

Random moment on Google Earth: I clicked on a photo of Takeshita-doori (major teen shopping street), and found the following banner:

イライラした人にからまれたら、
牛乳を飲ませてみよう。

More or less:

If you're getting hassled by an irritating person,
try making them drink milk.

I’m thinking that’s not going to help much. I can’t quite make out the kanji in their smaller banner in the background, but if it’s the same quality of advice, I think I’ll stick to pepper spray.

This is sad. The people on Hello!Online are surely well-versed in the ways of fashion disasters, but this is the picture where they finally decide to complain about the outfits? Is it because there aren’t enough colors? Is it the lack of feathers?

more...

Hello!Project is kicking out the grown-ups to make room for younger idols. Among those being cut loose is solo singer Aya Matsuura, known for the goofiness of her early work and a recent shift to a more adult-contemporary style.

Her latest release?

The sign reads:

　〜　喫煙されるお客様へ　〜
構内は禁煙になっております、
外の喫煙コーナーでお願いします。

Literally translated, it says: “To respected customers who (honorably) smoke tobacco: the premises have humbly become non-smoking, we request (you do it) at the outside smoking corner”.

The English translation is broken in a number of ways, but the most interesting part is “smoked visitor”, because it demonstrates that the translator wasn’t fluent in Japanese. The verb conjugation sareru is the passive form of suru, “to do”, so the first line really does say, “to visitors who are smoked”, but no one who speaks Japanese would interpret it that way. The context makes it painfully clear that this is the passive honorific form, and the honored visitor is the smoker, not the smokee.

So, we have a translation done by someone who doesn’t speak English or Japanese, better known as a computer. Without knowing how long ago the sign was made, it’s impossible to determine which software, but here are some modern attempts.

Babelfish (and anything else based on SYSTRAN, including Apple’s translation widget) produces something that’s almost English:

- To the customer who smokes -
the enclosure we have become prohibition of smoking,
we ask with the smoking corner outside.

Google’s attempt is poetic, but incomprehensible:

Smoking to be one of your
Smoking is on the premises,
In the smoking area outside.

Reverso, one I’d never heard of before, gives something that looks quite familiar:

I ask a smoked visitor for the yard at the outside smoking corner that smoking is prohibited in.

Paralink’s translator offers a nice contradiction:

Customers will be smoking on campus is a non-smoking, smoking outside corner.

Windows Live thinks different:

and smoking that is customer to premises smoking and: on the outside smoking corner in.

The Japanese site OCN has an interesting answer:

Premises at the outside smoking
area which becomes no smoking
to the customer who smokes, please.

Another Japanese site, @Nifty, gives this:

- Visitor smoked -
please give me premises in the outer smoking corner which is giving up smoking.

I won’t dignify Animelab’s web form with the term “translator”, but they give a link to Excite, which produced this:

?To the customer from whom it smokes?
I hope premises in the smoking corner of the outside that is no
smoking.

If you like anime, and you plan to visit Tokyo, you’d be a fool not to visit the Studio Ghibli Museum. Just make sure to buy your ticket before you get to Japan, to avoid the weeks-to-months waiting list.

“Long hours, unsafe working conditions, no benefits. Must supply own uniform.”

“Batteries not included. Not a union job.”