Chinese t-shirts with English slogans
This morning I read this article in the Guardian newspaper: ‘My favourite salad is books’ – why the French love badly translated slogan T-shirts: “It might simply be that we have gone post-logo, with slogans proving so common that they no longer have any proper meaning. They are simply words that look nice on cloth”. Oh la la! French people are usually considered trendsetters, but in this regard I’m afraid I have to say they are mere followers: everybody knows that the absolute kings of nonsense English text in t-shirts are the Asians. If you don’t know what I mean, google asia tshirt english and have a look yourself. Our fellow blogger Ray Hecht has also posted hilarious Chinglish clothes before. I’ve sometimes seen funny t-shirts on the street, but I’m either not fast enough to take a photo or I don’t dare snapping a picture at someone’s chest. But where do Chinese people get their t-shirts? Surely many of them are bought in Taobao! So I went to check what I could find when I searched for the keywords “t shirt” and “English”. Because I am a serious and scientific researcher, I classified and separated the results in several groups. Here they are:
– Correct English that makes no sense on a t-shirt
“Favorite restaurants in London”. Ok. Cool. At least you could have used the British spelling of favourite.
“Why are you still talking”. Why are you written on a t-shirt?
I always wanted to have a bland shirt.
This one is quite good: it’s the Wikipedia definition of t-shirt, haha. And the picture was taken in Ikea! (And the girl looks like she forgot to wear pants, but that’s another story).
– Suspicious grammar
“Techniques of photographing”. A very inspiring slogan to show on your chest.
“Hurry for you”. Not sure what this is supposed to mean.
– Sentences that make no sense
“Sunshine girl!
You see
shine my heart
Yige”.
Surely this has to be a haiku?
“Fcase note!
This will only be accepted
King remains attached”.
– Typos
“LIFEIS deouie not Meaning”. So deep, man.
Ok, I have no idea what this is supposed to be.
For Chinese people who haven’t studied English and are not familiar with the Latin alphabet, mistaking an L for an E is actually quite common. Like it would be hard for someone who doesn’t know Chinese to differentiate between 大 and 犬, maybe.
Rotternam is a lovely city close to Amsternam.
Where exactly is “heaver”? And bad girls go where??
Bonus track: this t-shirt is not from Taobao. One of C.’s colleagues was wearing it once (although it was originally bought in Taobao probably). It even has a word in Spanish!
“Interro gation
Set of cufflinks Nice pair
Got his cojones on my desk in there”.
If you would like to purchase any of these fantastic t-shirts, please let me know. If there are a lot of interested parties I might even start a business reselling from Taobao, hahaha.
There is a saying that goes if someone is good at something, there is always an Asian who can do it way better xD These shirts are hilarious. The last one has a lot of, erm, balls. I googled the Spanish word and it is hilarious on that shirt, just imagining the sentence :D
When I saw that t-shirt I was really intrigued. Where did they get that sentence?? xD Maybe it’s from a movie or something.
Omgggg I looooveeeee these 😂❤ I have once seen a woman in China wearing a tshirt that had ‘Pervert’ written across it. My friend and I nearly choked from laughing xD
The Pervert ones seem to be quite common! I’ve seen a few which included the word “fuck”!
Whoa, those are just hilarious Marta! It’s incredible what kind of shirts you find here. I regularly run into people wearing T-shirts with profanity on them and I’m pretty sure they have no idea. One was this really innocent looking young woman — can’t remember what it exactly said, but it was something like “you’re a f***ing @$$h0le” or something to that effect. I was laughing so hard I was afraid she might have noticed me!
I think the funniest is when old ayis wear them, because then I am totally sure they have no idea what it means and they wear it super proud, hahaha.
The last one!!!!! Ha ha! I see some weird English slogans on Spanish t-shirts here too. Zara and Stradvarious have some really random things printed on!
And I’m no better! I have 2 t-shirts with French on: One that says ‘merci, mon cherie’! and the other ‘oh l’amour…bla, bla, bla’. Completely random, but I like them!
I read Inditex basically copies their designs from everywhere, so maybe they also copy Taobao slogans hahaha.
I don’t have many t-shirts with slogans, but the ones I have are good haha. My favourite is one that says: Rock is dead and paper killed it.
Ha Ha, love that slogan!
Yep, Zara or Inditex rips off a lot of designers. And most probably ends up in land fill!
“Bland.” Exactly. That one is my favorite.
Someone from China should do a post on Americans with crappy slogans tattooed in Chinese characters, though.
There is a blog doing exactly that!
http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com
But I think the author is Asian American.
Those are so funny! When I was in China adopting my kids I enjoyed reading the descriptions on menus. Some of the signs are funny too but I find it endearing the flowery way they describe certain things, giving it all they have with the adjectives. But yes, I’ve heard of Americans getting Chinese character tattoos that do not mean what they think they mean LOL!
In Xi’an on my second adoption trip my first daughter and I ran into some school girls about 10-12 years old. They were so happy to meet me and showed me their English books from school. But I was dismayed when I could not understand one word they said in “English!” I tried so hard and they were such sweet kids and so sad when I didn’t understand them. As a medical transcriptionist I was used to ESL English but still could not get it.
Oh yes, the menus are hilarious too! I should collect some examples and do a post about that :D And the tattoos… yes. It seems some parlours even have an “alphabet” with a random character for A, another for B, etc, so if you want a tattoo of your name, they just form it with those characters. Total gibberish!
Poor kids! Sometimes people here try to speak to me in English and I don’t understand much but with kids it’s easier because they always say the same things. ‘Hallo! Welcome to China! My name is XXX…”. Some of them have a very strong accent.
Some cute t-shirts and models (if you ignore the English). I like the “Good girls go to heaver …” one. It leaves you thinking about what tackstae might be.
I almost understand why non-Chinese speakers want Chinese characters on all kinds of things. They’re so graceful and decorative, even if you don’t know what they mean.
I think it should read “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go backstage”.
I think English also looks decorative to Chinese people, haha.
Thanks for the shout-out! Those are great examples of weird phrases on clothes. Someday I hope to learn where they all come from…
Sigh, it’s what I’ll miss most from China~
I’m sure you’ll see some in Taiwan too :P
Hahaha me dan mucha risa estas remeras! (así le dicen en España? en Chile le decimos poleras). La otra vez me topé con la de la definición de wikipedia y me pareció bien interesante la verdad hahahaha. Saludos Marta!
En España decimos camisetas :D
I was laughing out loud at some of these Marta. Hilarious. I love the ones that make absolutely no sense.
Get some the next time you come to China! :D
Haha great post! I’ve definitely noticed some weird English on shirts before! This also reminds me of people who have Chinese characters tattooed on there arms, which end up meaning completely random things.
Oh yes, the tattoos… I have no words haha. Have a look at http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/ :D
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