On Friday I had a funny lost in translation event.
I got an email from a Chinese business acquaintance who had recommended a potential summer intern to us. We interviewed her, were impressed and hired her. She and I actually chatted about James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which is an absolutely bizarre topic during an interview for an internship with a Chinese logistics company, but I admit that it was one of the more interesting interviews I've done recently.
In any case, afterwards, my acquaintance, who speaks even less English than I do Chinese if you can believe that, wrote me the following short email in English. She must have either got help from a friend or used one of the internet translation programs. I quote:
Dear Chris,
Thank you for accepting Miss Pan as a jackaroo in your company.
Sincerely yours
Tang Li Li
All I can say is that it never hurts to have an extra jackaroo on staff, particularly one who can talk to you about James Joyce.
2 comments:
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I had to go look this up, and the first few entries I opened define a jackaroo as a male trainee or apprentice on an Australian sheep ranch. So...except for the parts about Australia and sheep ranching and being male, it's a perfectly reasonable translation.
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