La réunion de x-associé

X-Coworker's Reunion

We've been messaging eachother before to arrange a reunion on msn. Nelson had great idea to have a small get together. I rode out from my offiice at 7:30 down to 復興北路 [fuxingbeilu], I stopped at 門卡迪[menkadi] restaurant then while I was walking over to Breeze plaza when I saw coming Nelson on his bike. We finally met May and Cia at Breeze's lobby. They've changed a lot. They're more office-ladylike now.
We walked back to 門卡迪 while Nelson made a call to Chini to see whether she can come an join us. Chini showed up 15 minutes later, almost at the same time we got a table reserved. We sat down at the service from the waiter and start ordering our dinner. Nelson had some porkleg, mine is a prawn and fish, May was having chicken, while Cia ordered a macaroni. I chatted for hours and reminisce on the time we worked at our previous company, discerning about our own plan in the future. Nelson is working at an AV company now. May's still doing translation, Cia's changed profession to marketing officer and Chini just loved the freedom of being freelancer. Chini has a lot of plan in her mind. She wants to live in Kaohsiung for a while, she planned to work and live in Japan, a trip to study in German is also in her agenda. She's a very active girl. Aside from all her work, she's playing volleyball around the world with her team.

I asked them to give me an honest professional advice. Nelson thought I need to improve my attention span. Chini thinks I need to deliver more complete works. I took all this in my heart, and vow to improve myself in the future no matter where I am.

We parted and departed when the waiter told us that they were closing. I picked up some bakeries then went straight back.

ax

Pelog and Medog

There's two linguistically technical words that I could never translate into other language even had I tried to. They are Pelog and Medog.

Pelog is a condition for Indonesian speaker who couldn't trill the R sound in their pronunciation. For example, Ular lari lurus, will be pronounced as ulal lali lulus. This is mostly happened to Indonesian born Chinese who didn't get to master the sound at early age.

Medog is a condition for Javanese speaker who speaks Indonesian with heavy Javanese accent. I do not think you can use this word for Batak speaker who speaks Indonesian with heavy Batak's accent. That's why I think the word can only apply to that situation and cannot be used otherwise.

ax
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comments:
Pelog! I never heard of this word pelog. I asked my colleagues 'Do you know pelog?' To my surprise they all knew the word, and they said pelog was when a deaf person talk, or a stroke survivor. They can't pronounce clearly and sort of mumbles.
Sisil

Chris: I've talked to a puertorican spanish before, they have a name for people who couldn't pronounce "R" with proper trill. I gotta ask this guy again. I forgot the name for it.
Ax: don't they call them "japanese"?
Chris: 555

嘿咻嘿咻

heixiuheixiu

This is a slang in Chinese which means "Having sex." Here's my theory of it's origin which might be wrong of course. I think it comes form Shinchan (くれよんしんちゃん[kureyonshinchan]）comic on TV. When Shinchan's parents where doing it in the room. Shinchan ask what they were doing and his mom told her 嘿咻嘿咻[heixiuheixiu], which later adopt a new meaning to mean "having sex." Perhaps, what Shinchan's mom said in Japanese was "ひそひそ[hisohiso]”　which means "Secret" in Japanese.
It sounds similar to me, so I suspect 嘿咻嘿咻[heixiuheixiu] is just a Chinese transliteration of ひそひそ[hisohiso], which is very creative.

ax

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Comments

I don't think that origin is right.
hisohiso is a whispering sound, and doesn't necessarily mean "secret"

taka

Les mal traductions que je pense et celles de bonne

The bad translation that I think and the good ones.

May be I'm just a busy body, and this is all none of my effing business. But it really an eyesore to see bad name translation in Taipei. I don't know why they don't grow and trust native speaker to choose a better name for them instead a mere sound translation from Chinese sounds and end up in crazy and irregular transliteration not found in any standard. Nuts!

I'm going to update this post regularly when I see good translation to ponder with.

巨 匠 I really love this Chinese name for a bushiban in Taipei, it looks real good in Chinese. It has two 工 on each character and 口 an 斤 on either one. It seems like the best name they have and it could translate to "Great Craftmanship" which is an auspicious meaning.

Now look at the translation on their shops in Taipei "GJUN", what the hell is this. Not even a correct transliteration in any standard out there. If it wants to simulate English phonology to sound as close to the Chinese sounds, it doesn't achieve a great success either, further, it lost the whole great meaning in 巨匠, something that really make me disgruntle. Here's what I think of a good translation for 巨匠. 巨 = 大 = Magnum (Latin) ; 匠 = 工 = Opus (Latin), I good translation will be a "Magnum Opus" or a "Masterpiece."

8/8 happy papa day,
I saw good translation today, a cafe in downtown 土城 [tu cheng] with English name - JUST CAFE, and equivalent Chinese name is 就是咖啡 [jiu shi ka fei]. No doubt! Best translation I've seen. It fits the meaning and almost the sound.

8/28 taxiing to ximen
I saw another good translation of a boutique shop near CKS memorial hall. The Chinese name of the shop is 恩雅 [en1 ya] and the English name is just Enya. Good one! good pinyin, and is an existing female name in English repertoire.

ax

Le premier jour au travail

The first day at work

Monday August 2 is my first day at work in Activebalance. I came early at 9:30 and the office door is still closed. I bought a papaya milk and had to gallivant near the alley until Yahui showed up a minute before 10:00. She unlocked the door, and we went to our own desk. A stack of brochures and documents were on my desk with a note from Yap to get all those translated asap. I nodded acquiescently and start fixing my notebook so I can get some headstart.
Tina came in a while later. I knocked and went into her office to have a casual newcomer report to work. She dismissed me after all the pleasantries and i got back to the translation until an email from Japan came.

Motokura-san wants me to get the Macs installed, and Ogawa san has been sending me details and instructions in the magnificently well written Japanese. I had to put all puzzle together of all the screenshot with my mantelpiece nihongo. After one our of nudging and trying, I finally got their applications to run on my Japanese systems. Hurray, I hurriedly get the office girl to get me some data so I can try their functions. This systems is crucial for our operational in Taipei. I got back to translation again until I was saved by the bell at 7:00.

Rode my bike home thru the usual Keelong route, bought some tomato beef noodle for dinner and 4 lotteries at the request of VK. No luck. Not one matches. Can't bet it on the lotteries. Get real job.