Everyone loves looking at Berlin through the familiar grid of its dense subway and train system. We did it to find the way to the cheapest rents, closes lake, or best burger – there is even a map with an improved design which you guys especially loved.
Now we found something new and we think you will like this at well – especially you lovely Ausländers. It’s a Berlin Subway Map with literal English translations of all the stations which lead to such hilarious word creations such as Seinfeld Plaza (Senefelder Platz), Janno Joke Bridge (Jannowitz Brücke), Shitbus Gate (Kottbusser Tor) or Virgin Heather (Jungfernheide).
While some of the new names are word-by-word translations that simply make no sense in English such as Mister Man Street (Hermannstraße), others are more inventive interpretations such as Shampoo Street (Schwarzkopf Straße). No matter if you’ve been to any of these stations or not, going through the map is a real treasure hunt for unexpected puns.
The map was created by Barrington Russell from Metromashco, a British designer who got stuck in Copenhagen waiting for a tea shipment that never came. He’s already taken on various metro maps from other cities such as Stockholm, Oslo, and Paris which he translated literally, whimsically, questionably, or even belligerently into English. You can get all of them over in his webshop as poster prints.
I live in Pankow and am surprised to see the station here called “Special Train”. The neighbourhood is named after the stream that runs through it (Panke) but Wikipedia also says that “pankow” is a Russian word meaning “swamp place”, which would also make sense, though I can’t find anything connecting the two. So how is it translated as “Special Train” on the map?
Thats the problem with the anglosaxon world, they really think everything is translatable.
Folks like you also think Germany still looks like in Hogans Heroes.
indeed that one is a mystery to us as well.
@Nick
i think they called it special train because of “der sonderzug nach pankow” from udo lindenberg
@Nick the “Special Train” for Pankow is a reference to this 1983 song “Sonderzug nach Pankow”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmKBRX0_aNI
ENDLICH!
Yes! Everything is translatable.
Never seen anything more ridiculous than that.
Who would start to translate Brooklyn back into Breukelen and New York back into Nieuw –
Amsterdam?
And for those you dont know the difference: Dutch is the language of the Netherlands and Flemish Belgium.
Love “Ballet” for Spandau
And of course the “Federal Day”