Yes, we often have meetings in "Touching Room"

Thanks, Simon!!! O(^_^)O

Yep, we loved this "Touching-Room Incident" and we still use this phrase internaly often like "We shall have a meeting in Touching Room!" or "Where are you going to be?  - Oh, I will be in the meeting room, not Touching Room!".   There is no funny translation for meeting room yet.  If anybody have, let me know.

Now it's Sonny's turn, but he is too busy this week.

I will chase him around and make sure he write something soon.

If he doesn't know what to write, maybe we should have a meeting in Touching Room then.

Nonsensical English

In Japan over 90% of Japanese to English translation is carried out by native Japanese speakers. I’ve come across estimates as low as 3 percent for the number of such translations carried out by native English speakers.

The result is that visiting English speakers can see lots of very bizarre English slogans written everywhere, which are sure to provide endless amusement. From hotel lobbies, train stations & airports, in official documentation, advertising and even the advertising slogans on biscuit packets.

The accepted view in most countries is that translation should be carried out by native speakers of the target language. It is virtually impossible for a non-native speaker to write a sentence that sounds natural, and the chance of making howling bloopers is very high.

Here’s an example:

The Japanese word ousetsushitsu means meeting room or reception room in English. One Japanese engineer translated it as the touching room. The Japanese characters for this word are 応接室. The middle character alone, 接 means connect, adhere or touch, and I can only assume this is why the engineer came up with touching room.

The documentation eventually came my way so I could correct it, but many companies do not have any procedures in place to catch these kinds of errors. I suppose there just aren’t enough native English speakers in Japan.

Walk through Tokyo any day and you will see a huge number of clothes and fashion goods decorated with nonsensical English. A tee shirt that says BUY MORE SOCKS!, another that says Stability of a Penguin, or a bag that is decorated with the words Enjoy nice bag for your happy trip. A popular brand of coffee had the slogan “I wonder why coffee tastes so good when you’re naked with your family” The thing is that in many cases the designers don’t really care about what the English means. It is purely a visual design feature - an attempt to make it look fashionable or cool - so they are not even interested in checking the meaning in many cases.

Our business is different of course. We often deal with British and American clients so it is essential that we make sure the English we present them is correct.