Fun With Words

Lately, my daughter, Noodle, has been trying to casually study Chinese.  She thinks of a word she wants to know, looks it up online, asks me how to pronounce it, copies the characters into a notebook and practices.  Then she puts the words she knows together into "sentences" and copies those onto notebook paper and practices.  The problem is, my pronunciation is likely to be a mangled shadow of what the word really sounds like, and we don't know if the meaning of the character is the same as what we think it means since there are several definitions all written in characters for each word, and... I hate to break it to her, but, sentence structure just ain't the same between the languages.  And... when you draw those characters, do you have to use a calligraphy pen?  Is it called drawing a character, or writing a character?

I admire the girl for her dedication though.

I was looking back through my photos and noticed I hadn't shared with you some of the "must-have-been-translated-by-a-ten-year-old-casually-studying-English" signs that I found in China.  Oh allright, they're not all that bad.  But they're gosh darn funny.




The entrance to the bathrooms at the Jinan airport might possibly be slippery. 
OR, if you don't watch out, Security will get you.  Maybe. 
I know we should be careful.  About.  Something.



Only YOU can prevent danger.



I need this on my bedside table.



Tate's shirt.

I dare you to dare to dare... to... er...what are we talking about?

 

This sign at the airport was so perfectly translated that I was physically compelled to photograph it. 
What else says China like a garish neon sign stating, "Coffee Tea Noodles" this way ------> ?



Um.  This was next to a set of steps.



Saying "Keep off the grass" is so last year.

 
But let's face it friends, if we had Chinese characters splattered all over our infrastructure there would be lots of pretty don't walk for feet under slippery attention when how to do.

To please watch for.

Have more external.

Zài jiàn!