06 April 2006

Can you decipher these?

Last week in Paris I noticed an advertising campaign with posters touting the travel planning services of the SNCF, the French national railway. The SNCF's travel agency doesn't just offer train travel, the posters said, but also trips to overseas destinations.

On each poster below there is a phonetic transcription of the name of a major city that is not in Europe. It's a French spelling of the name as it is pronounced in French. You have to have a good grasp of the language to decipher the names, though they are obvious to French speakers.

Can you figure out what the advertised destinations are?





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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous07 April, 2006 17:29

    Answers, in crossword puzzle clues:
    1) Site of "West Side Story"
    2) Home of the Raffles Hotel
    3) To get there, you go to LAX

    I'm cheating a little, because I saw one of these on the ParisDailyPhoto site and followed the links to see all the signs. Clever campaign.
    Chris

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  2. Anonymous07 April, 2006 18:25

    Hey! I think I got them (even before I got to the clues from anonymous, honest!)... New York, Singapore, and LozAngeles, vero?

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  3. Anonymous07 April, 2006 19:50

    I got them, too! They're great. New York is the one that really throws you at first, I think, but then it all makes perfect sense. Sort of.

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  4. Ken Broadhurst07 April, 2006 20:27

    You all are too good! Another poster showed a sign for an imaginary town called Gastreau-en-Térite and said you won't even be inconvenienced if you get sick and can't come in to pick up your tickets. The SNCF will mail them to you.

    ReplyDelete

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