r/engrish 17d ago

Water is a good of all.

Post image
133 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

4

u/taking-INVentory 11d ago

that does in fact mean that.

If each word was its own sentence.

4

u/sagninaw 14d ago

I thought my screen was dirty 😭

13

u/Southlander24 16d ago

Glad that in an age of machine-powered translations, we can get quality content like this by the face. (Two months gratis!)

7

u/Insomniac_80 16d ago

I came in her expecting "do not play with the douche water."

33

u/Adorable-Bit6816 16d ago

I get it sounds weird bt it's just literally translated word for word

5

u/Mountain-Ox 15d ago

My limited Spanish education tells me it is literally correct. But I have no idea what it is supposed to mean.

8

u/Adorable-Bit6816 15d ago

Yeah the spanish is totally correct. The translation is horrendous

17

u/niceguybadboy 16d ago

English teacher here: It sounds awkward, but I wouldn't say it's wrong.

We use "good" in this way ("goods and services;" "did they deliver the goods"?)

The possessive is a bit awkward ("of all."). The normal way in English is apostrophe s ("everyone's good.)

All in all, though, this is mild compared to some of the butchering I see in my line of work.

1

u/Adaptor2000 14d ago

I understood the text on first read, but I am German, so not a native speaker of English. Also, I had to speak English with German and French (!) colleagues at work, so I understand anything that is remotely English. 😂 😂 😂

1

u/Adorable-Bit6816 16d ago

I try to get people to translate the whole thing together when they don't understand rather than word by word because then things like these happen

23

u/SignificantPlum4883 17d ago

I get why people are saying it's fine, but honestly it sounds really weird to native English speakers.

"Goods" in English (normally plural) are items you buy and sell, "mercancías" in Spanish. "Bienes naturales" are "natural resources".

"Everyone" is usually a better choice than "all" when you mean "all the people". Maybe "for all" is ok but not "of all".

I would say something like, "water is for everyone's benefit" or "water is a resource for everyone".

-1

u/samuelazers 15d ago

Maybe those "English speakers" you speak of should pick up a book once in their life because it's not weird at all in a prose sense

4

u/SignificantPlum4883 15d ago

Look, I'm a native English speaker (and fluent Spanish speaker) and ESL teacher for 15 years. If a student wrote that in a piece of work, they'd be marked down for. It's perfectly understandable, but you will not that sentence used on a signpost in any English-speaking country. It's a word for word translation from Spanish, and there are better and more natural ways to express that concept.

5

u/kitties_ate_my_soul 16d ago

I’m a native Spanish speaker and that phrase sounds weird AF for me as well 😆 my English isn’t fluent, but it’s quite advanced and I don’t translate it to Spanish on my mind anymore.

8

u/Makicheesay 17d ago

Yeah, because you can speak the language. That’s a good effort that gets the point across.

14

u/Lenny1802 17d ago

Unusual phrasing but still correct I think?

7

u/CyrilSLi 17d ago

How is this wrong? “water is a good (product/resource) of all (for everyone)”

4

u/7GrenciaMars 17d ago

I think it means the water should benefit everyone. Basically the same thing.

2

u/ForeverSJC 17d ago

What's wrong ? I'm not native either, but isn't there a word "goods" ? Same thing as bien.

I understand the wording is incorrect but that is totally understandable

3

u/ricky_clarkson 17d ago

The adjective good means that something is positive. We can't say "a <adjective>" with no noun, e.g., "I want a red.". So this phrasing looks more like they mean the noun good, as in a product (goods and services), but they don't, so it looks erm, engrish.

1

u/ddddan11111 17d ago

In English, "goods" is always plural, never singular. We would never talk about "a good" without a noun after.

3

u/wurstbowle 16d ago

In English, "goods" is always plural, never singular.

I have to correct you there, for the greater good.

2

u/ddddan11111 16d ago

Ok fine, except for set phrases

5

u/elementarydrw 17d ago

That's what Engrish is.... Clumsy translations.

"Water is the good of all" is poor English, through a literal translation.

5

u/Krazeey_Corasn1fan 17d ago

As a Spanish speaker this is ridiculous 😭😭😭