Sulieman Fayyad‎

The road sign, before it was changed

A new temporary sign posted near the Al Saad Sports Club elicited chuckles from several passersby this week.

qatar airways

The sign, which read “In Arabic/New Road Layout Ahead,” appears to be missing the actual Arabic translation of the message.

“I stopped my car when I saw it because I was about to get myself killed from laughter,” local resident Sulieman Fayyad told Doha News. “I couldn’t believe that I actually saw that. Then I drove around again to take a photo.”

Fayyad shared the picture, which he took on Wednesday, on the Facebook group When, Where and How in Doha, where it drew over 1,000 likes.

Sulieman Fayyad‎

The new road sign

However, Fayyad said that when he drove past the same spot on Thursday, the sign had been replaced with the one above.

Lost in translation

This is not the first amusing error on a sign in the multilingual city of Doha, of course.

Qatar residents have a long history of looking on the funny side of some very human mistakes.

There’s this translation from the Thai Snack menu, for example:

http://www.michaeljcasavant.com

An image from the Thai Snack menu

The writing on this tanker:

Unknown

A tanker with a translation issue

And this impressive effort to brand this pick-up truck. So close, and yet so far:

Victoria Scott

A pick-up truck with an identity crisis

Have you spotted any good bloopers around Qatar?

We’d love to see them. Please email them to editor@dohanews.co or comment below.

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