Your guide to Thai signage and its impossible English

AMONG THE BILLIONS and billions of bits and bytes of information shared on the social media, only one thing is truly funny – pictures of signs in Asia that mangle the English language.
Okay, maybe we’re exaggerating about this being the “only” amusing part of the chat networks, but it’s always guaranteed to tickle the funny bone. Of course mistranslated foreign languages have been appearing on signs in Thailand since the Portuguese arrived in the 1400s, to utter confusion, but Facebook and Twitter have given this particular genre of humour a far wider audience, and now there’s Google Translate too, which can manage high-school French but so far hasn’t helped Thais with their English at all, or farang with their Thai either.
Obviously we need better tools if we’re going to have all these foreigners pouring in from the rest of the Asean Economic Community. Otherwise we’ll just have more of the confusion that eventually drove the Portuguese away.
One intriguing source for weirdly worded signage is the education website Scholarship.in.th, which has taken note of more than 40 abuses of English but refuses to suggest any corrections, hoping its readers will figure that part out on their own. Soopsip hereby tries to make some sense of a few of them.

IN SUPERMARKETS
l “Forbidden island glass”: Let’s see, the sign is attached to a glass display case, so we’re going to go with “Don’t touch the glass”.
l “Tang million”: Nope, not “thanks a million”. This is advertising cucumbers (tang ran) and seems to be playing up their large size, using the Thai word for million (ran).
l “Banana water wow”: An over-excited twist on kluay nam waa, meaning specially cultivated bananas.

ON A BUS
l “Please expect safety belt”: Someday, we suppose.

ELSEWHERE IN PUBLIC
l “Beware Saturday!”: They mean look out for the utility pole, also sao in Thai.
l “Not dangerous to swim in this area”: Yes it is.
l “Obedience of traffic rules drive accidents”: A convoluted way of saying heed the law.

AT BANG SUE POLICE STATION
l “Crime Manager”: Above the desk where folks get their bail revoked. Your guess is as good as ours.

ON AN ATM MACHINE
l “Sorry ATM Gard Eat”: At least they’ve tried to warn you about the malfunctioning card-muncher.

ON A BUILDING
l “The door flees the fire no entry”: Fire escape only.
l “No more women”: A sad thought, but merely a temple’s admonition that no women are allowed beyond this point.
ON THE MENU
l “Meat shirt crying slide”: Google Translate for Nua sua rong hai slide – thin-sliced beef.
l “Mama’s fried drunk”: Mama pad khee mao is Mama-brand spicy stir-fried instant noodles with the khee mao given its alternative translation.
l “Some inner orgasm like a tube below stomach”: A fascinating description of yam sai tan (pig-intestine salad).

AND FINALLY
The slogan at the restaurant Mum Aroi is “Face not bend wait no longen impressive service”, based loosely on the rhyming Thai Nah mai ngor ror mai narn borikarn pratubjai. It just means “Friendly, prompt and impressive service”.