I saw an advertisement of a product which helps people clean their body without the need to use water. The advertisement was:
We made easy way to clean, No need to water
Is it correct?
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1'We made easy way to clean' sets the tone for what follows. A link to the original would help, so that the overall standard of English used may be estimated. – Edwin Ashworth Nov 21 '17 at 12:05
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Googling "We made easy way to clean" only leads to this question. I have a feeling it was not copied correctly. If this was an advertisement, I think it would show up in more places. – pipe Nov 22 '17 at 09:49
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@pipe I'd guess it's a rather poorly translated sentence to English or just a random ad on real-world shops, not a digital ad. – Andrew T. Nov 22 '17 at 09:52
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Depending on what the product is, the correct verb would probably be "rinse." – Miles Nov 22 '17 at 10:31
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Water can indeed be used as a verb. It means "giving water to something" as in:
Watering the plants (pouring water on them so they don't dry out)
or
Watering the horses (making the horses drink to quench their thirst)
The verb water is applied to (living) plants and animals, whereas cleaning is not something you usually associate with those.
Therefore I do not believe that water was used, or meant to be used, as a verb in your advertisement. The advertisement is not grammatical at all.
We made easy way to clean
This is not a sentence any native speaker would utter. What was meant was probably something like
We came up with an easy way to clean.
Since the first sentence is, although understandable, so clunky, I would assume that the second part also means something else:
No need to water
They probably meant:
No need for water
or possibly
No need to apply water / No need to use water
oerkelens
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The mishap maybe happed because in a dictionary "to water" was explained as "to apply water, to give water to sth" or similar. (In some languages you might "apply" water to plants and it means watering them, I guess.) – skymningen Nov 21 '17 at 11:41
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The first half of the sentence "We made easy way to clean" gives it away as something not written by a native English speaker. Firstly it needs an article "We made an easy way". Secondly, "making a way" to do something is uncolloquial, you would usually talk about "inventing" or "developing" a way to do it. Thirdly, "to clean" would normally be transitive; or if you're talking about cleaning your own body, you would say "to wash".
A translation into colloquial English would be: "We made it easy to wash: no need for water".
Michael Kay
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2"Wash" implies the use of water (or some other solvent) for cleaning. "Cleaning" has no such implication. – 200_success Nov 21 '17 at 19:28
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@200_success I think Micheal has the colloquial translation right. "Wash" does currently imply use of a solvent, whereas "clean" doesn't. On the other hand "clean" is "clean something else" (unless you explicitly say "clean yourself"). A marketing slogan would be more concerned about the aim of the exercise than the means to achieve it. – Martin Bonner supports Monica Nov 22 '17 at 08:55