I have a new theory. I always have theories. The new one is that you can understand a lot about a culture and a language from the way they translate themselves into other languages. I'm in Japan. It's wonderful.
I've been observing the English signs everywhere, the English signs because they are the only ones I can reasonable assess. The other ones I can only imagine. I've also been listening of course to English announcements whenever they are available.
It's a well-known fact that Japanese write foreign words using a syllabary that is different from the one they use for their own words, it's called katakana. Obviously, this syllabary is flawed. There are a lot of consonant groups that don't exist in it and as a result you get weird results when they speak English and even when they write it. There's a sign at the hostel saying for example that you should be very puncutual when taking a train. And if you have a headache you better take an asupirin.
In Spain they also have spoken announcements in the metro to tell you what are your options at each station. And they do exactly that, they tell you your options. In Tokyo (pronounce long o and both syllables equally tonic please) it's quite different, the message says something like "Please change here for line X". So very polite, it's like the platform manager will commit ritual suicide if you miss your station!!
To be updated...
