Category Archives: Bad Spanish

Bad Spanish in Salt Lake City

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When out for a walk on a recent visit to Salt Lake City,  I saw this sign above Popperton Park :

Bad Spanish

 

The substitution of Parke for Parque is one of the worst Spanish mistakes I’ve ever seen in public signage. Spanish doesn’t even normally use the letter k! Even Google Translate or its ilk would have gotten this right. Grrrr.

If you care about such things, please drop a line to parks@slcgov.com asking them to fix the sign.

“No niños en la canasta” — not!

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I’ve been meaning for some time to share this horrendous sign I saw in a shopping cart at my local supermarket:

This sign combines several mistakes, evidently as a result of a word-by-word translation:

  • The upside-down ¡ is missing.
  • You can’t say no niños. It would have to be ningún niño. This is way too formal for a shopping cart, suggesting that a complete rewording would be better.
  • Canasta ‘basket’ is a bit iffy — depending on where you live, the correct word might be cesta. Carrito ‘shopping cart’ would be safer.

I asked native speakers on reddit and many recommended something like ¡No sentar niños en el carrito! ‘No seating children in the shopping cart”.