Literal Translation

          This sign is posted on the wall of my room.  So what the heck does it mean?  ‘Pensile’ is an obscure English word meaning ‘the building of a hanging nest.’  Notice the picture in the upper left hand corner of the notice.  The sign is actually telling people not to hang laundry from the sprinkler system.  

            Likely, the sign maker plugged an appropriate Chinese phrase into a translation app on a cell phone or electronic translator, and the apparatus came up with this piece of nonsense.  Portable software has its place in travel and the initial phases of learning a language, but past that it slows people down and makes them sound silly.  Often, when intermediate learners ask me how to improve their English,  I tell them to throw these automatic dictionaries out of the window.