T-Houseは英語の使い方に注意した方が良い。

On the north side of Hashimoto Station, there's a store selling beauty supplies called T-House, and they are in desperate need of help with their English. They have a giant sign on the building which barely makes any sense:

In Order To Twinkle You More Beautifully,Such A New Salesclerk
Who Can Propose Has Your Coming To The Store
The Place Which Leads You ToThe Beauty Of Following Step
It,,,,PRO SHOP T-HOUSE.

It's hard to decide what to point out in this text. First, let's try to guess what they mean. Maybe they want to say:

To make you twinkle beautifully like a star, our clerks can suggest the best things for you and lead you on the steps towards beauty. Come to our store: Pro Shop T-House!

Some of the mistakes they have made include:

1. using title case for a sentence. Don't Capitalize Each Word In A Sentence Unless It Is A Title!!!
2. ignoring proper spacing after punctuation. Put a space after periods and commas.
3. meaning mistakes. You can't twinkle me, since "twinkle" is usually used without an object.

There are others, but the funniest is probably the "new salesclerk who can propose". It sounds like one of the staff will propose marriage to me if I go in. While that might make for an interesting experience, it's a little too heavy for my tastes. Some light flirting might be fun, but a marriage proposal is too much.

• propose (without an object) - to propose marriage. propose to ～にプロポーズ［求婚］する、～に結婚を申し込む (definition from Eijiro on the Web)
• flirt with 面白半分に（人）の気を引く、（人）にお上手［お世辞］を言う、（人）に面白半分に手を出す、（人）を誘惑する［もてあそぶ］、（人）といちゃつく［イチャイチャする・ベタベタする］(definition from Eijiro on the Web)

「パーカー」は英語で何、part 2

I'm surprised that this post from 2010 about パーカー is still really popular. A lot of people find this post using Google.

http://upgradeenglish.blogspot.jp/2010/01/blog-post_20.html

Just to recap, we don't use "parka" to mean the same thing as Japanese do; we say "hooded sweatshirt" or "hoodie" for short.

• to recap 要点をまとめると (definition from Eijiro on the Web)

For us, a parka is a kind of longer jacket, often for rain or very cold weather.

In the first picture above, those aren't hoodies or parkas either. They are hooded windbreakers. That's what all of these things have in common: hoods.

• hood 【1名】〔コートの首の回りにつける〕フード、頭巾 (definition from Eijiro on the Web)
• windbreaker《衣服》ウインド・ブレーカー、風よけ用ジャンパー (definition from Eijiro on the Web) <- my note, "jumper" sounds like a kind of dress for women or children to my American ears, though it's a pullover sweater in the UK

I think it's not quite cool enough to start wearing hoodies here, but maybe a lot of people are thinking about it. As for us here, we are just wearing our hooded windbreakers, which feels just right for the temperature at the moment.

「college」と「collage」の違い

I was reading a blog post the other day in which the writer was talking about:

× a student studying at his collage
○ a student studying at his college

"College" is pronounced like KAH-lij (カリジ without the "i" at the end) in American English, while "collage" is pronounce like koh-LAHJ (コラージ without the "i" at the end). Be careful about the difference in stress.

• collage 【名】《美術》コラージュ◆さまざまな素材を同一画面に組み合わせる芸術的手法。【他動】《美術》～のコラージュを作る

In the dictionary, I found "collage" is コラージュ, which is closer to the French pronunciation. The dictionary has カレッジ for college, but I think if you say that, the pronunciation will sound strange, too. Say it without ッ.

The photo above is a collage I just made for this post. I studied art in college, but I'm not sure that this collage is any good. Anyway, it's full of mistakes I've found in public. Can you remember the correct English for these?