I would fully expect to get made fun of if I said something funny by accident in a different language. I’ve had that happen when I tried speaking Thai in thailand and spanish in south america and you know what? It is funny! They explain why its funny and everyone has a good laugh and I learned something! Thats how I found out the double meaning of caliente! Languages are hard and sometimes the mistakes happen to be hilarious, its not punching down. I probably sound ridiculous to a native speaker but at least I know that and I’m making an effort.
This isn’t saying something funny by accident though.
When you’re on holiday and you ask the barman for nipple juice sure, you can all have a good laugh about languages.
This person is an employee, doing their best to perform a complex task that you were lucky enough to learn as a child. Imagine walking into the shop and having a good old laugh with the signs author about their bad spelling. I don’t think they would find it very funny.
Additionally, there’s a profound difference between having a light-hearted joke with someone, and posting it on social media where everyone can make lame jokes about people struggling to get by using English as a second language.
Honestly, I’m amazed that you’re insensitive enough not to understand that the two situations are completely different.
It might be funny to you personally, but other people might be more self-conscious. When I first moved to Japan, I was extremely self-conscious about speaking Japanese because I knew I was making tons of errors and had the vocabulary of a college educated 5-year-old.
I was below age at first, not that that stopped me completely. But yeah, when I returned to Japan a few years later, that helped a lot. A lot a lot. Alcohol may be poison, but it’s great for helping you learn a language.
Also the reason I still have trouble using even the most basic politeness levels in my speech here-- people at the bars definitely weren’t throwing around keigo, and even -masu didn’t often make it past beer #2.
Since this is obviously a gas station, it is quite likely the person who made this sign speaks english as a second language.
Even if its their first language, working at a gas station often implies they don’t have the education or work history to work elsewhere.
Can we stop punching down?
After 30 years of the international internet I am pretty fuck sick of making fun of people who don’t speak English well.
It would be like going on RedNote and getting dogpiled for speaking Mandarin badly.
I would fully expect to get made fun of if I said something funny by accident in a different language. I’ve had that happen when I tried speaking Thai in thailand and spanish in south america and you know what? It is funny! They explain why its funny and everyone has a good laugh and I learned something! Thats how I found out the double meaning of caliente! Languages are hard and sometimes the mistakes happen to be hilarious, its not punching down. I probably sound ridiculous to a native speaker but at least I know that and I’m making an effort.
This isn’t saying something funny by accident though.
When you’re on holiday and you ask the barman for nipple juice sure, you can all have a good laugh about languages.
This person is an employee, doing their best to perform a complex task that you were lucky enough to learn as a child. Imagine walking into the shop and having a good old laugh with the signs author about their bad spelling. I don’t think they would find it very funny.
Additionally, there’s a profound difference between having a light-hearted joke with someone, and posting it on social media where everyone can make lame jokes about people struggling to get by using English as a second language.
Honestly, I’m amazed that you’re insensitive enough not to understand that the two situations are completely different.
It might be funny to you personally, but other people might be more self-conscious. When I first moved to Japan, I was extremely self-conscious about speaking Japanese because I knew I was making tons of errors and had the vocabulary of a college educated 5-year-old.
Sounds like you needed to embrace the nomunication harder
I was below age at first, not that that stopped me completely. But yeah, when I returned to Japan a few years later, that helped a lot. A lot a lot. Alcohol may be poison, but it’s great for helping you learn a language.
Also the reason I still have trouble using even the most basic politeness levels in my speech here-- people at the bars definitely weren’t throwing around keigo, and even -masu didn’t often make it past beer #2.
Hah!
I guess I had the fortune / misfortune of working for a very traditional company. So I heard plenty of keigo at work.