| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | I’m kind of confused Thread poster: Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
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jyuan_us 
United States
Local time: 12:10
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| Clarification needed | Jan 11, 2023 |
Thomas T. Frost wrote:
I'll tell my US agency's employed Argentinian PMs in Argentina and a Spanish agency's PMs working in the agency's offices that they are really Chinese freelancers and must be seriously confused if they think they are from Argentina and European countries, respectively. I'm sure they'll truly appreciate this clarification of their status.
1) In "that they are really Chinese freelancers", What did you mean by "they?"
In other words, you want to tell your US agency's employed Argentinian PMs in Argentina and a Spanish agency's PMs working in the agency's offices that these people are really Chinese freelancers. Who are these people?
2) In "must be seriously confused," who must be seriously confused?
3) In "I'm sure they'll truly appreciate this clarification of their status," are you referring to the same people by "they" and "their?" If not, who does each of "they" and "their?" refer to?
[Edited at 2023-01-11 20:19 GMT]
| | | | | Humour and sarcasm lost | Jan 11, 2023 |
jyuan_us wrote:
1) In "that they are really Chinese freelancers", What did you mean by "they?"
In other words, you want to tell your US agency's employed Argentinian PMs in Argentina and a Spanish agency's PMs working in the agency's offices that these people are really Chinese freelancers. Who are these people?
2) In "must be seriously confused," who must be seriously confused?
3) In "I'm sure they'll truly appreciate this clarification of their status," are you referring to the same people by "they" and "their?" If not, who does each of "they" and "their?" refer to?
Quite clearly, the humour and sarcasm intended were lost somewhere over the Atlantic if you need to ask all these questions. A Brit would get it.
[Edited at 2023-01-12 10:46 GMT]
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 12:10
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| I know where you are coming from | Jan 11, 2023 |
I see your points now. Thank you for the clarification.
[Edited at 2023-01-11 20:36 GMT]
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 12:10
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| I see it now | Jan 11, 2023 |
Thomas T. Frost wrote: jyuan_us wrote:
1) In "that they are really Chinese freelancers", What did you mean by "they?"
In other words, you want to tell your US agency's employed Argentinian PMs in Argentina and a Spanish agency's PMs working in the agency's offices that these people are really Chinese freelancers. Who are these people?
2) In "must be seriously confused," who must be seriously confused?
3) In "I'm sure they'll truly appreciate this clarification of their status," are you referring to the same people by "they" and "their?" If not, who does each of "they" and "their?" refer to? Quite clearly, the humour and sarcasm intended was lost somewhere over the Atlantic if you need to ask all these questions. A Brit would get it.
I got it after reading your post again. Thank you for the hint. I forgot to read your post together with the one above it, and that is why I got no clue about what you intended to say.
[Edited at 2023-01-11 20:47 GMT]
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jyuan_us wrote:
But sarcastic texts still need to be clear in meaning. Isn't that right?
Not everybody gets humour and sarcasm, and some need it spelt out, but I'm not going to do that. You can nitpick over the antecedents for 'they' and 'their', but these antecedents can be deducted from the context, just as they can in your own sentence containing 'because they cannot afford'. I'll leave it to yourself to figure out what 'they' and 'their' could possibly refer to. It really isn't that difficult and shouldn't be that difficult for a native-English translator. Sometimes, the reader is required to think a bit.
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jyuan_us wrote:
I get it after reading your post again. Thank you for the hint.
Good. If a joke needs to be spelt out, it usually isn't funny any more.
But I'm aware of the different ways Americans and Brits deal with humour. I'm not saying one way is better than the other, only that it's different and can cause misunderstandings – between natives on either side of the pond.
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jyuan_us wrote:
I got it after reading your post again. Thank you for the hint. I forgot to read your post together with the one above it, and that is why I got no clue about what you intended to say.
Aha. That explains it and demonstrates the importance of reading the context. I thought you were trying to nitpick, as I really couldn't see how it could be misunderstood in the context.
Edit: and there's nothing wrong with the English written by these Argentinians and Italians. If I didn't know their nationalities, I'd never have noticed. Many natives make more mistakes.
[Edited at 2023-01-11 21:01 GMT]
| | | | expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 17:10
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida wrote:
I was contacted yesterday through Proz by an agency asking my availability for a French-Portuguese translation (my answer with my availability and rate was met with dead silence). The email came apparently from an Australian agency with offices in Sydney and Warsaw which has an excellent BB (all 5s), I googled them, visited their website and everything seemed to check out correctly, but the fact that they asked if I “support American time zones” made me slightly wary and so I looked up the IP address which revealed the geolocation: the Netherlands. What do you think? Could this be just globalization at work or was it an attempt to scam me?
P.S. I'm not sure this is the right place for my posting, feel free to move it, if necessary...
I was also contacted by the same agency.
When they asked me if I could support American time zone, I answered them with a question: why should I have to support their time zone (and as far as I know the time zone in the US varies...)?
Their answer was "you don't have to", along with their payment terms that I did not accept at all, because in addition to a payment in 45-60 days, the payment transfer fees would be charged on the translator side!
A transparent agency would explain why they wanted someone who lives in Portugal to meet the US time zone.
To me, they might even be a trustworthy company, but their approach gave me no reassurance and my response was simply: "I'm not interested, thank you."
I also found little or no information about them and what I found on Proz.com along with their website didn't convince me.
[Edited at 2023-01-12 14:51 GMT]
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