"In English, we have this expression: 'It's all Greek to me.' Do you know what that means? It means I don't understand what I'm looking at."
I was talking to my supervisor at the library this past Thursday, and we were trying to figure out how to deal with spine labels for a series of Chinese books. She wanted me to translate a few titles from their English transliteration back to the original Chinese, no big deal. In the process, she made a joke about the total incomprehensibility of Chinese characters to her, resulting in the above quote. So I find myself in the bizarre situation of sitting there, nodding my head and trying to contort my face into a look of dawning comprehension, as my supervisor slowly explains (the way one might explain something to the very young) a basic idiom in a language I have long considered my native tongue.
Thank you, very much, for teaching me the mysterious ways of your language. Bilingualism is a rare thing indeed if you cannot grasp the concept that there may not be an exclusive one-to-one correspondence between my ethnic appearance and the languages I speak.
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3 comments:
Ouch. Damn.
You speak the Engrish?
In fact, you're more literate than I. Goes to show, when it comes to Nancy, there is MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE. And this is proof that -- IN GENERAL -- librarians are scum.
Also, I'm a white kid from CT who talks like he's from the ghetto. Heh.
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