Your English has no heart

in congressional

X The automated external defibrillator is set up in congressional in the this hospital.

Tim says:

There are three problems with the English on this sign.

If you say “The automated…”, we would assume it’s the only AED, or it’s a specific AED that has been mentioned before. But it hasn’t been mentioned before, so “an” is better.

Someone has translated 「設置」 as “set up in congressional” — it’s hard to be sure what that means! Americans might think it has something to do with their Congress (国会)! A better translation is “installed”.

Also, as you probably realized, there’s no reason to have “the” and “this” together. You only need one or the other. In this case, “this hospital” would be better, because it means 「当病院」; “the hospital” is simply 「その病院」.

O An automated external defibrillator is installed in this hospital.

Thank you to ミキコリさん for sending this photo!

周囲にある英語を見て、果たしてそれが正しい英語なのだろうかと感じる英語はありますか?「あの英語は絶対に間違っている」という英語の表記はありますか?看板の写真を撮って、Machigai.comに送りましょう!とんでもない英語だったら、このコーナーで出します!