Thursday, January 10, 2008

This is why I have huge amounts of respect for my team.

My team. I'm the one on the right.


Knowing no Chinese at all, particularly in written form, I thought I would use babelfish to translate a thank-you note in Chinese to my team before I leave. I typed the note, entered it into babelfish, translated it into Chinese, then translated the Chinese back to English to see how it would read to them. Here's what I got back:

Your good team, we enjoys our visit here extremely, thank you to be hospitable and to join us for the supper in Wednesday night. Thanks and your unusual persistent and hard-working work. We hoped this year completes the work and you. We hoped again visits, with and hopes Jacky the visit to Chicago in March. Please with us relates if you have any question or the care, we pledged all helps you to complete your best work. Thanks with very quickly sees you completely, Cindy

Needless to say I didn't send it. Even the least experienced speaker of English in this office can do a better job than that...and that's a computer.

So props to you, Shenzhen team!

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