I don't know where to put this put i thought here was as good as any.

Anyone with examples of Japanese (and why not we'll stretch to chinese) that you've saw written (not in japan obviously) that the person who wrote it / is wearing it clearly doesnt know what is written.

I saw a guy wearing a T-Shirt at work with "Tokyo" and a few random characters spread around.. but at the bottom this sentence was written as clear as day.

赤ちゃんが乗っている。

Now im hoping its just my beginner Japanese that translated this wrong. Please someone tell me that isnt saying what i think it is.

It does say "the baby is riding", but it's not really "dirty" in any way... When said like that, without a context, 乗る usually signifies "going along" with some sort of flow... If you say "Let's play this game I found!" and someone is like "Hell yeah, WOO! GAME!!!", that person would be 乗っている.

Thanks

So much I don't know lol.
Rather happy that it doesn't mean what i thought. How to look at the customer again knowing that he's wearing a T-shirt that implies something like that without his knowledge.

Does it just mean "baby on board" (as in signs in the back window of a car)? Or can this be an idiom to mean "pregnant"? Kind of hard to say without seeing the shirt, although knowing Japanese t-shirts... may be not so much.

I think so. = 赤ちゃん乗車中 (I've seen such a TShirt in English on pregnant women - not so often on men though...) ;-)

I'm still a beginner at Japanese myself, but from the few hits on Google I've glanced at with that phrase, it seems that it sounds weird to Japanese ears, or at least uncommon. It doesn't quite have the same idiomatic punch as the English version.

(They also seem to exclusively refer to the stickers used on cars, so the extension to pregnancy doesn't seem to exist either.)

One response I found slightly amusing:

Quote:「赤ちゃん乗ってるからオムツ臭いですよ～～」 って意味なんだろうな～～って思うようにしてます。

The Japanese have been doing such things with English for years,

http://www.engrish.com/

Just simply a case of the reversal happening