Language is a wonderful and complex thing. One of the biggest testaments to how interesting humanity can be is that there are still more than 7,000 languages spoken in the world today.

It’s a mind-boggling number to think about, but what can get even more confusing is when we try to communicate the meaning from one culture into another. It’s bad enough dealing with all the variation in what we speak and write, but when whole different alphabets, soundalikes and concepts get involved, it’s easy to make some pretty big mistakes.

This has recently been highlighted in an entertaining Twitter thread started by @EVYSTADIUM, praising the «insane and undefeated» literal translations she had come across on menus in Chinese restaurants. What followed was a humorous exploration of all the most outrageous uses of English that people had seen when on their travels. While these translations may not be entirely correct, their entertainment value is truly priceless  — and they offer a fascinating lesson in vocabulary, too.