anata-wa eigo wakari-masu ka?

"This polite request in Japanese means "Do you understand English?", which a gaijin in Japan should use every now and then. Whenever you request this to a Japanese person in order to get some information, he or she will willingly try to help (at least that is what happened with me) in their best way possible. Their response starts with "Japanized-EngRish" pronounciation of words, like, R in place of L in most cases. They keep on talking and instructing until they are sure that they have explained everything and in the end, you're right where you started."

This was written by a friend of mine when he was accounting his experiences in Japan. I say, he was not far from the truth. Japan is a place where they really don't need English in any sense. English there, is used as a fashion show-off for your lingiustic abilities, English there is used for product advertisement to make them look cooler, and English there, is also used if you're an Eigo sensei. Since English is like a "recreation" there, some folks do no hesitate to name Japanese English as Engrish. They say this site is for the lighter side of life, with even Nihonjin contributing in the site. Well, now I wish I had taken some photos of Engrish samples that I had encountered!

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the most boring page on the internet

Some people are born boring; others like John Ingram, thrust boredom upon the rest of the world. And so as we tread upon the gargantuan bog called the Internet, we slip and wonder: why? Why did John Ingram create a site that has nothing but just 413 (exactly) words of text? Why did he create a site that has no meaning, no reason to exist, and no way to earn him even a cent, forget a fortune? But it takes all kinds, and Ingram is one of those. He is rational in his thought, grammatically correct in his writing (although) for some reason he hates capital letters), and has enough reasons to keep the world’s most boring site alive at all times since its “founding” in 1996. Is that why his site has now been translated into 12 languages including Finnish, French, Swedish, Norwegian, and, hold your breath, ladies and gentleman, Pig Latin? World War II is obviously history since here we have a German as well as a Hebrew translation sitting right next to each other. The site, Ingram informs us...

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folding the brick - talent wasted on perfecting crease on glass

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