This book popped up in my Amazon recommended list so I scanned the search inside pages and thought some of the lines were amusing but I decided to skip buying it thinking it to be a "let's slag off Jonnie Foreigner's poor English" type book but later I received it as a gift so I got it after all!
My preconceptions about this book seemed to be allayed initially as there plenty of quips to smile about, which I'm sure many others will find too, but in contrast to other reviewers, I found the laugh-out-loud quotes were quite few and far between.
I would have rated this book more highly if it remained as a collection of notices *in the public domain* in which hapless translators amusingly fall foul of the nuances of English, e.g. hotel notice: "If you cannot reach a fire exit, close the door and expose yourself at the window."
But instead, the latter pages descend into mocking individual's attempts *in the private domain* to communicate in English, e.g. a whole series of texts from an Italian boyfriend to his English girlfriend. Why the heck have they been printed! I'm pretty sure most of us have messed up those sorts of messages from time to time too, but they're meant to be private anyway.
I read the book from cover to cover which in hindsight may have been a bad thing as I agree with the reviewer who says the quotes tend to blur into one another after a while; it becomes tedious reading virtually the same notice from one hotel repeated in another. Also, as none of the quotes are referenced it does raise suspicions of whether all are even genuine...
