[Ford Prefect]

Anyway, I have never understood why you are making fun of bad grammar by non-native speakers of English. Believe me, people all around the world can find mistakes in (and make fun of) your speech of any foreign language (foreign, in the sense it's not your mother tongue). You may find forming sentences in English overly simple, meanings of words are probably blatant and trivial, but it's because you are native speaker of it. When I was a six-year-old, I also thought my mother tongue was easy, logical, and did not understand why others cannot speak/write it. I was like 10 when I suddenly understood the reasons. You guys are certainly more mature than that.
This is not something to make fun of. It's as much as throwing tomato at the disabled for not moving out of your way as you approach. If you don't believe me, start learning a foreign language, preferably not a Germanic language, just to make sure you're learning a language not within the same family as English. You'll understand how wrong you were.

It's not mean-spirited or critical. People just find it funny to hear and read their language broken. I laugh at fractured English, and I fully respect someone else's right to laugh at me when I mess up their language. Besides, it's always easier for people to get along when they don't take everything so seriously.

I mean come on, how is this not funny?

[Herra Tohtori]

Engrish is funny when it's in official manuals and product descriptions - not to mention movie translations.

You would think they'd find someone who actually knows english to do official and semi-official translation work.

I certainly don't find it "amusing" if someone who is not familiar with Finnish tries to use it in conversation, and makes mistakes... Course not. I appreciate that he or she is trying to learn the language, and mistakes belong tho that phase. But public texts should be translated by someone who can do it, not by BabelFish... although they sometimes are both ccomprehensive and funny as hell.

Engrish during learning process = natural thing, not funny or worth snickering at;

Engrish in public translations, official and semi-official contexts = funny and pitiful and tells that the people who did the translation either largely overestimated their own abilities with English, or just plainly didin't care enough to get someone else to do it, preferably an actual translator.

 :

[Mathwiz6]

We laugh at the difficulty of speaking english, not the fact that they speak it badly.

And we laugh at the funny things that occur with mangled english.

I.e. on a knife "Caution, sharp"

[Mars]

There is no reason for anyone to be offended. I know for a fact that people laugh when English speakers maul their language, so why can't we laugh when non-English speakers mess up English?

[Tyrian]

An' we laugh at th' funny thin's wot occur with mangled english.

I.e, on a knife "Caution, sharp"

This was engraved as a warnin' on a knife in North Korea: 

"Keep out o' minnows."

EDIT:  Arrr!  Children!  Keep out o' C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N!  Not minnows!

EDIT2:  Gotten rid of the excess pirate speak!

[Sandwich]

"Keep out o' minnows."

EDIT:  Arrr!  Children!  Keep out o' C-H-I-L-D-R-E-N!  Not minnows!

EDIT2:  Gotten rid of the excess pirate speak!

[Mongoose]

The thing is, when you see terribly-phrased English on something like a T-shirt, store sign, or instruction booklet, you can't help but laugh.  Case in point: the infamous case of a Japanese T-shirt with the phrase "Spread Beaver" on it, which was worn by thousands of innocent young Japanese women without any clue as to what it was saying. All of these represent situations where someone who actually knows and speaks fluent English should be doing the translation, not a non-English speaker using Babelfish or trying to remember a year of English in grade school.  We're not saying that we should laugh at people trying to learn English; of course we realize how difficult of a language it is to master.  What we are laughing at is utter incompetence in the use of English in settings where it should be properly translated.

[Wobble73]

English speakers can get things badly wrong to you know, as in this site explains

Lost In The Translation


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In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."


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Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."


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Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken affectionate."


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Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as : "Suffer from diarrhea."


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When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people can't read English.