Haha, by the way, the lyrics of some songs in English (especially which are written by non-native speakers) are quite similar to these (but I should note that I'm non-native myself).
at one point in the past the translations on some souvenirs sold to tourists were bad because there were no translation apps. And now it's because vendors have realized that tourists like to buy souvenirs with funny-bad translations
Specifically, these are quotes from characters in the classic novel Three Kingdoms (name who have actual historical counterparts). There is a meme that has assigned them phonetic English names, and have used literal English translation of some of their classic lines to give us this English. It's actually funnier if you know the characters in 3 Kingdoms!
True story. So I know someone who's high up at a certain company that makes a certain phone and he's in charge of the batteries. Well, he's a phd and all his teams in china are also phds. Now, on his team he as Drs. Mi, Yu, and Hee. And he calls his team by prefacing Dr. in front their name, but they only call him by his name. One time his supervisor was on a call and asked him, you're a phd too, so why don't they call you Dr? He replied with, I had to start adding Dr because otherwise when telling Yu that he needed to do something with me, within 5 minutes everyone was confused--I'm not Hee, I'm Yu, and Mi is working on X, why would I need to work with Mi? Wouldn't I have to work with you? lmao.
They’re intentionally bad translations mixed with irreverent humour concerning historical figures often credited with significant cultural events in China, making their traditional wisdom sound silly. They’re pretty funny if you know who they are.
For example, “Double Cao” is referring to Cao Cao, which makes his name sound kind of modern and gangster but also stupid.
looool it rhymes.....
Confucius ❌ Confusion ✅
I mean... the final one is still understandable ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Know is know and no know is no know. x = x and y = y. r/TechnicallyTheTruth
Well yea
Huh
Such a r/technicallythetruth thing lol
Wait, that's NOT Sun Tsu?
x is x, -x is -x.
Ah .... Lost in Translation.
this book is peak. probably my most read piece of reading material that has ever been in my house. always finding something new
It’s intentional to make it hilarious so ppl will buy 😂
It's a nice movie too!
I want all of those
WIFI SAID
One chest of Emo,
some years farewell,
error error error.
Sounds like a kid from youtube typing lmao
thank you Johnny Kong
Johnny looks like chinese Pavarotti
One chest of Emo
Lol
The OG Yoda
知之为知之，不知为不知。（first bag）
Well, if Johnny said ..
All their beards consist of sixteen strands of hair
Johnny has no know-how of English
To Know, Know, Know him,
Is to "No, No, No" him...
And oh, when he fakes that smile
It makes "NO!"-ing him seem so worthwhile...
To Know, Know, Know him,
Is to "No, No, No" him...
And I will (yes I will)
And I will (yes I will)
And I will (but not yet, not today)...
I love this song
Haha, by the way, the lyrics of some songs in English (especially which are written by non-native speakers) are quite similar to these (but I should note that I'm non-native myself).
Face to wine
Preach, bag man, preach.
I want the first and last on a shirt holy shit it's rad
This is worse than in Rush Hour 3 with Mi and Yu.
WiFi said
Error Error Error
'Life is how long?'
Johnny is spot on.
$75 ?
I need all of these in t shirt form right now
First one wins - no no is a no no.
Johnny's always had such a way with words
No lie, I would use the first and last bags.
I want the last one on a t shirt. lol
First one is giving "I know you know Lee Know" vibes
Those are supposed to be funny, you know. They’re translated that way on purpose.
Yep that’s why Cao Cao got translated as Double Cao
They tried to make me go to rehab.... I said know is know, no know, is no know.
Ahaha
how long is life.
Slide 3 is amazing
I think this is done on purpose and therefore does not count as engrish.
For example WiFi, which is supposed to represent “陆游”, draws the connection from the same pronunciation “陆游” (the name of the poet) and “路由” (Router).
You can’t achieve this with a bad translator
"Face to wine and sing a song. Life is how long."
--Double Cao
Words to live by.
Cao Cao should be Double Fuck.
Also words to live by.
My favourite
Dang, those are all FIRE!
What a know know.
Confucius did actually say the first one, and it is a well-known tongue twister among Chinese people
知之為知之，不知為不知，是知也
Why do they use such a bad translator app? Mine picked the right meaning correctly.
These are done this way on purpose, as a joke. They get passed around a lot online in Taiwan.
at one point in the past the translations on some souvenirs sold to tourists were bad because there were no translation apps. And now it's because vendors have realized that tourists like to buy souvenirs with funny-bad translations
I no know, you know no!
Yeah I know, right?
No know. How you know?
🤣🤣🤣
These are fantastic and I want them all.
How Long is a Chinese man?
"Error error error" -WiFi
I want that ancient saying tattooed on my body.
Yu and Liang is understandable, but who is Joey? Yugioh?
Also, my god, Double Cow, lmao
Kuuuunai with chain!
Sepatown, pone tony!
Joey is similar to the Chinese pronunciation of Zhou Yu if said quickly
Read all of them with a Yoda accent and now I can't stop laughing lol
That sums it up perfectly.
I always have felt an alignment towards the wisdom and philosophy of Wifi. So smart, truly beyond his time
How I buy?
Face to Wine is a mood
I’d buy these.
“WiFi” might refer to protagonist Wei Wuxian of popular bromance novel Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi)
Someone else said in another thread: it’s Lu You 陆游, which is a pun on “router” 路由器
The hilarious translation is from one of his love poems
I didn't know that
Know is know, no know is no know
He's not wrong :)
Whoever named WiFi and just had its quote in the bag is a time traveler
Legendary, all of them
The third one is my favourite.
Error error error.
One chest of emo here. That one and the last one are great!
Ah yes, my favourite Chinese philosopher: WiFi.
That last one kinda slaps
Double Cao...ahhh my people
Unironically these are actual quotes engrish translated
Explain?
Specifically, these are quotes from characters in the classic novel Three Kingdoms (name who have actual historical counterparts). There is a meme that has assigned them phonetic English names, and have used literal English translation of some of their classic lines to give us this English. It's actually funnier if you know the characters in 3 Kingdoms!
Not all in the three kingdoms ~ 仲尼、陸游
Yeah they have poets, philosophers and some other random historical dudes too.
These are all real Chinese sayings/poems from history, with funny references to the real original authors
For example, Double Cao is 曹操 Cao Cao, and he wrote a poem called 短歌行 that started with the lines
对酒当歌 人生几何
Which, if you translated character-by-character, gives you the funny result in the image.
It’s more like:
As I sing with this cup of wine in hand, I ponder the length and meaning of life
I only know that I no know Socrates
Who's Jobnny Kong?
His brother's royalty! Princess Kong.
I want one now
LMAO Had a genuine laughter with these. Thank you for sharing
Johnny kind of looks like Mike Portnoy
Wow! So deep and profound.
So enlightening.
I reached a whole new realm from this profound wisdom
amazing! 🤣
Face to wine is a good time 👌👌
But sing a song, life is how long?
Double Cao read my mind
You know what? I’ll allow it. Here in Hawaii everyone says if can, can. If no can, no can.
But can can, can you do the can can?
What if toucan?
No four can way!
Typical Hawaiian Johnny.
I was in a bad mood, this made me laugh a little.
He need these unironically
Hes so wifi
It’s such a Wifi thing to say. What’s he like, eh?
Error Error Error
I NEED THESE
The addition of confucius is hilarious
Kinda need the wifi one
It would say "error" 3x.
陆游 ran into a problem and needs to restart. Would you like to send an error report?
"Already born Yu, why born Liang" is a great advice tho. Why have 2 when you can have 1 kid and pay less?
Why have many kids, if one kid do trick?
Maybe that’s where they got the idea
Well, I believe readily what WiFi said 😂 and it seems WiFi said the other things in secret too
OMG I need all of these to wear with my "I do not think, therefore I do not am" tshirt
This is so funny!
This isn’t “Engrish.” This is a study of homophones in English (such studies are common in Mandarin)
Steven Seagal
No, no, please no.
Life is how long?
Wine drink not wrong
Smoke you can bong
Musical song!
Why born Liang?
I love the Double Cao one.
And btw, I also love the "error, error, error" one. It’s so modern as the vibes of the follow:
A: 工作丢了，对象丢了，项目亏了，我的世界崩溃了。 A: Lost my job, lost my girlfriend, lost money on my project. My world crashed.
B: 你是不是mod加太多了？我之前也遇到过这种情况，加了一个高清画质的mod就崩溃了，把一些没用的mod关掉就能运行了。
B: Too many mods? That happened to me. I installed one HD graphics mod and it crashed. Just disable the ones you don’t need and it’ll run.
I played too much Dynasty Warriors as a kid and wanna know what the actual Cao Cao quote is supposed to be
It's from his poem called "Short Song Style" (短歌行):
對酒當歌，人生幾何？
I lift my drink and sing a song, for who knows if one's life is short or long?
譬如朝露，去日苦多。
Man's life is but the morning dew, past days many, future ones few.
慨當以慷，憂思難忘。
The melancholy my heart begets, comes from cares I cannot forget
何以解憂？唯有杜康。
What can unravel these woes of mine? I know but one drink – Du Kang Wine.
青青子衿，悠悠我心。
Collars in blue, my heart worries for you
但為君故，沈吟至今。
You are the cause of this song without pause
呦呦鹿鳴，食野之蘋。
Across the banks a deer bleats, in the wilds where it eats
我有嘉賓，鼓瑟吹笙。
Honoured guests I salute. Strike the harp! Play the flute!
明明如月，何時可掇？
Bright is the moon's spark; When can it be grasped?
憂從中來，不可斷絕。
Thoughts of you from deep inside, never settle, never subside
越陌度阡，枉用相存。
Friends drop by via a country road, the respect they pay really show.
契闊談宴，心念舊恩。
A long due reunion we fest, sharing past stories we possessed
月明星稀，烏鵲南飛，
Stars around the moons are few, southward the crows flew.
繞樹三匝，何枝可依？
Circling the tree round and round; on what branch shall they nest?
山不厭高，海不厭深。
Mountains weary not of their height, oceans weary not of their depth.
周公吐哺，天下歸心。
The sage pauses when guests call, so at his feet the empire does fall!
This is much better context! Thanks!
对酒当歌，人生几何。
I don’t have to ability to translate. Doing some search:
With wines in front of us, we should sing, How many years do we linger, human being?
Sounds kinda like,
Celebrate everything with fervor, there won't be much of a life left to celebrate
Oof, felt that one.
I know!
“He is me, and I am Yu”
True story. So I know someone who's high up at a certain company that makes a certain phone and he's in charge of the batteries. Well, he's a phd and all his teams in china are also phds. Now, on his team he as Drs. Mi, Yu, and Hee. And he calls his team by prefacing Dr. in front their name, but they only call him by his name. One time his supervisor was on a call and asked him, you're a phd too, so why don't they call you Dr? He replied with, I had to start adding Dr because otherwise when telling Yu that he needed to do something with me, within 5 minutes everyone was confused--I'm not Hee, I'm Yu, and Mi is working on X, why would I need to work with Mi? Wouldn't I have to work with you? lmao.
I love these 😭🙏
Omg I want them all!!!
so for context:
2.既生瑜，何生亮 -- 周瑜
3.一怀愁绪，几年离索，错，错，错 -- 陆游
4.对酒当歌，人生几何 -- 曹操 （We used to translate the second part as "life spent studying geometry " ）
"To know what you know, and to admit what you do not know—this is true knowledge." — Confucius (Kong Zhongni)
"Since Yu was born, why was Liang also born?" — Zhou Yu (lamenting Zhuge Liang’s brilliance rivaling his own)
"A heart full of sorrow, years of lonely separation—wrong, wrong, wrong!" — Lu You (Song dynasty poet, from Phoenix Hairpin)
"Facing wine, one should sing; how short is life?" — Cao Cao (from Short Song Style)
"for context" is nice and all...but I can't read mandarin 🤷🏼♀️
Ive always referred to this being smart enough to know how dumb you are.
Lol.
This gives me much less context as I cannot read these symbols.
To be fair to someone who knows the phrases referenced it sounds like a fun spoof item
Pretty sure this is intentional silliness.
The “Double Cao” instead of calling him Cao Cao is telling me that this is intentional.
"One chest of emo" is a dead giveaway
I'd rock every single one of these mfs. Make it into a calendar 😂
I mean, theyre not wrong
Know?
No know
One chest of Emo, please.
"Well, when they know, you'll know, ya know?" -Crush the Sea Turtle
The first one is straight up wisdom though.
Last one too.
Didn't expect any less from Double Cao though.
Preach
Thanks Guan Yu
IYKYK
KIKNKINK
But these are jokes, not mistakes.
can you say more about this?
They’re intentionally bad translations mixed with irreverent humour concerning historical figures often credited with significant cultural events in China, making their traditional wisdom sound silly. They’re pretty funny if you know who they are.
For example, “Double Cao” is referring to Cao Cao, which makes his name sound kind of modern and gangster but also stupid.
Man, Cao Squared would have been cool too.
Yeah it's a joke, not a mistake.
Error error error
Buffer overflow?
Double Cao instead of Cao Cao is really funny to me, also the dude named wifi, if that's a joke in itself I want to know what it means
The word router is luyouqi 路由器in Chinese, and the first two characters “luyou” 路由are homophones with the poet LuYou 陸遊
I read ’The world router is’ - and was sucked into some weird metaphysical place for a few mins before realizing my mistake.
Took me a while to understand why WiFi, apparently not very tech savvy
This one is so complex. A heart full of sorrow becomes “A chest full of Emo.” Wrong, wrong, wrong becomes “error! Error! Error!”
This makes me love it even more.
That’s hilarious.
I'm struggling to breathe right now 🤣
Deep wisdom.
"Error error error."