One of the doubtful pleasures of my job is reading through and correcting essays and CVs. These are usually written by highly intelligent people who, unfortunately, often still are not at home with the English language. Below are a few recent gems:
* 'I was impressed by my team leader's leadership and learned the virility of my leadership' (oh my...)
* 'I would assume that it is because he was educated in the US that he thinks rationally and wastes no time' (uhm, I pretty sure everyone I know from college, including myself, minored in Procrastination)
* 'I learned the importance of the effort, the concentration, the fellow, the sincerity, and also patience' (which fellow?)
* 'Given this challenging spirit that he owns' (....poltergeist?)
* 'I want to be a global business leader' (x1000) (everyone writes this, but what does this mean?!)
Some could perhaps accuse me of being mean-spirited for posting these. However, I well know that my own mistakes in Japanese have literally brought my sempai to tears with laughter. Plus, slogging through those things day in and day out should allow for a bit of slack!
And I actually do like most of my clients, or people I meet at work-related events. Some have even been kind enough to express their appreciation in tangible form... such as huge boxes of sembei and the glorious confections which have been tempting me and my boss for the past few days.
The more awesome parents give us food every once in a while, one recently gave us a set of three super fancy juices from a department store.
ReplyDeleteYour clients' English is still 10000000000000000000000x better than my boss' English! Be glad T_T
Yay free food! Especially fancy food.
ReplyDeleteOh don't worry, there are a whole series of clients who write incomprehensible stuff;p
Too bad about your boss :(
'I want to be a global business leader' They always dreamed of growing up to be Coca Cola?
ReplyDeleteAnd you are so horribly right on the minor in procrastination.
Hi Sarah! That is the best comeback ever! I may have to steal that one ;p
ReplyDeleteI must admit my fav is the first one. I almost spit out my tea when I saw it
Lol You got to love it when they just go translating word for word. I have that problem too when going from English to Japanese :x
ReplyDeleteOhh and the misuse of "the." Lolol it's really hard to explain when and how to use it though DD:
And yay for awesomely delicious snacks..!! :D
Yeah, especially when they choose really weird, overly complicated words.
ReplyDeleteThat heart cup is soo adorable! haha~
ReplyDeleteThat sounds interesting! Reading a resume or CV of a Japanese person in English seems interesting, since the cultural difference in resume styles between Japan and the US is pretty different (or from what I gather).
Those sorts of things are def what get me through each day. Finding gems like "I am a peanut" and "I am smaller than a cat" make dealing with the monotonous ones worth it.
Hi Indi,
ReplyDeletethanks, it was a graduation gift from a friend :)
The CV styles are very different, but most of them are (fortunately) aware of that.
'I am smaller than a cat' is definitely interestin!