Croeso i Asda: Shoppers in Cambridge encouraged to 'brush up on their Welsh' after supermarket runs out of English signs
Shoppers in Cambridge encouraged to 'brush up on their Welsh'
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Well, shoppers in a Cambridge branch of Asda have been encouraged to 'brush up on their Welsh' after the supermarket ran out of English signs and were forced to put up bilingual versions.
Around twenty signs in both English and Welsh were used by the company in Asda's Cambridge Beehive Centre store directing customers to items such as potatoes/tatws and pears/gellyg.
An Asda spokesman told The Independent: “The signs that are up in our stores at the moment are a temporary measure whilst we get the correct ones ready for the store.
In the mean time we invite all customers to have a go at brushing up on their welsh.”
The lack of English-only signs was due to a shortage at the company's printers, a company spokesperson said. In Wales products are routinely labelled in both English and Welsh along with road signs and most public signage.
Famously in 2008 an out-of-office email reply appeared on a Swansea council sign near an Asda store in the Morriston area of Swansea.
The sign was meant to inform drivers that the route was not suitable for heavy goods vehicles. Instead it read: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated".
The council had emailed its in-house translation service but didn't check the reply.
Other examples of signs lost in translation include a road sign between Cardiff and Penarth that appeared in 2006 and told users they had problems with an "inflamed bladder".
A sign for pedestrians put up in Cardiff in the same year told people to 'Look Right' in English but 'Look Left' in Welsh.
Test your Welsh food words knowledge by translating the shopping list below
(Nb. It shouldn't be much of a challenge)...
Siocled, Brocoli, Stêc, Twrci, Bacwn, Pwdin, Pys, Coffi, Te, Iogwrt, Nwdls
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