Yeah, bad English (aka Engrish) is low-hanging fruit, but it’s fun nonetheless.

I ordered a connector to connect my iPhone to a projector (to add multimedia to our classes) from a Shen Zhen-based company. They included this thank-you note.

The text of the note for screen-readers:

Congratulation! Your account now had been validated. You can now login to your account.

It’s been said a million times before, but why don’t these companies spend $10 on getting someone to proofread?

I’m going to try an experiment. I’m going to email this company with my corrected version. (Yes, I’m making this up as I go along.)

Here’s the email I’ve sent them:

Hi there! I’ve just confirmed my email address and noticed a couple of English grammar mistakes on the confirmation page. I would like to offer you a corrected version. I’m actually an English teacher, and I have done translations and corrections in the past professionally.

Here is the incorrect text:

Congratulation! Your account now had been validated. You can now login to your account.

Here is the corrected text. (Please note that I have simply corrected the grammar, but have not changed the content.)

Congratulations! Your account has now been validated. You can now login to your account.

Just wanted to let you know. Hope that helps.

Best regards,

Erin

Monoprice is a pretty big company that provides good service and good products. Wonder how hard it will be to make that change.