…. Say, what should ich? Especially without Yoda als professeur…..
UPDATE: As AppyLinguist (who obviously has much better eyesight than me) points out - the code at the bottom of the poster tells us that it’s in “Spanish, German, French and Italian“. I’ll let you decide which is which, though.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s something incorrect with each of those tongues. Well, I don’t speak Spanish, but the Spanish looks wrong - present simple, perhaps? I believe the French kind of says ‘No Smokers’, right? And I need not mention the German.
I’m not sure about the Spanish, either - but wouldn’t it have been great if they’d cocked up the English as well?
Well, they kind of did, by having the warning written in English at the top, and then wasting space by including English as one of the other language ‘options’.
Who on earth is behind this sign? Don’t they have a single QA bone in their body?
Oh, I’ve just noticed it says something in the bottom left: Spanish German French Italian. I think the fourth word is Italian, isn’t it? It just keeps getting worse!
In the vein of the scottish parliament “scots” translation (http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/language/scots/index.htm) , they should have one that says “dinnae smoke, ken”
I’ve had great fun on the Scottish Parliament website. (I should get out more.) And why isn’t there an equivalent Cockney page for the London one?
The Spanish may be correct. They do that article+infinitive thing, like their German cousins. It’s bad luck on the French smokers that they’re not even allowed on the premises.
Somehow I don’t get the “no smoking” in English under info: ” No smoking on these premises” - or is that for chavs? “no rauchen” is cute but can’t beat the one I saw a few years ago on a tram in Duesseldorf: “Don’t step on the kickplate”…
It’s like ‘English for Runaways’ all over again, “I war my go-stop over fields”, (Ich kreig mein Gehalt ueberwiesen) etc. etc. teutonic hilarity ensues!
There was a bloke a few centuries back who wanted to make an English to Portugese dictionary but he didn’t know any English, however he had a Portugese to French dictionary and a French to English dictionary….
I think it’s quite well-known but I couldn’t tell you the title or anything, I remember someone quoting from it once it was most amusing.
At least if they’d put No Smoking for the German one it would almost have been correct for Plattdeutsch. I like No Rauchen tho’ it sounds like the way a Glaswegian would talk German.
But as Appy Linguist points out it does seem strange that in an area designed to be no smoking that French non-smokers are discriminated against!
Appy: I‘ve just looked at an enlargement - God your eyes are good for a man of your age - it does indeed say ‘Italian’.
BiB: Hopefully the dastardly French (smokers or not) wouldn’t have been able to get so far north anyway?
The two RBs….: They’re both actually wonderful stories…..
“NO RAUCHEN” is at least slightly better than the alternative, “NICHT SMOKING”, which would imprecisely imply a ban on dinner jackets.