so i've been attempting to translate technical articles (primarily about spray products, e.g. deodorant, insect repellent etc.) from english to chinese for my mom in my spare time. in addition to translation i've also been editing the english, 'cause it was written by a non-native speaker.

( this completely puzzles me, though. )

it is 12:30am and i am listening to smashing pumpkins' "1979". feeling fairly mellowed out and creative but, ugh, this is... so not a creative space. it sounds totally wanky and pretentious, but there are some places i just can't work in. the house is beautiful, but there's something about the space that feels too... alien ( Read more... )

HEEHEEHEE THIS IS SO FUN. i decided to give interpals a try. after getting through about 4-5 guys who i think just wanted to talk to me 'cause i'm a chick, i met a girl from china who i'm doing a language exchange with. she writes in english and i write in chinese. it's kinda cool 'cause my chinese and her english are bad, so we correct each other ( Read more... )

lemme just preface this by saying that the difference between HK spoken chinese and uhh 'formal' (aka. written) chinese is the difference between "skived nomming, had work up the wazoo" and "i did not have dinner because i had a lot of work to do." HK chinese is very slang-y. except, unlike in english, HK chinese is even worse, because when you ( Read more... )

recently (aka. five minutes ago) i realized that my spoken cantonese has actually improved a little because of having to teach english. some of my kids are so thick; if i ever want to get things done, i have to bellow commands in cantonese. odd, huh. i never thought i'd improve in my second language by teaching my first language to people ( Read more... )

WHAT KIND OF MANGA TRANSLATION/PUBLISHING COMPANY DOESN'T HAVE A WEBSITE, GODDAMN IT I JUST WANNA KNOW WHETHER OR NOT I CAN GET A HARD COPY OF THIS GD MANGA OR NOT

also 與 = 与? SERIOUSLY? HOW THE FUCK DO THOSE TWO LOOK EVEN REMOTELY ALIKE ASKGBASKHBKSDH AAAAAAA. i know traditional chinese came before simplified but JEEZ MAN seriously every time ( Read more... )

i don't have much to do this holiday so i looked at lern2japanese books in pageone (aka. pretty much the only predominantly!english bookshop chain in hong kong).

every single textbook in english was way too easy.

every single textbook in chinese was way too hard.

i just. FFF. i walked out with my sister's keeper instead. =__ ( Read more... )

i kinda love qantas now. they have very few spaces for babies, which means NO BAWLING unlike with cathay pacific, where flights are sometimes an unending hell.

HEURRRGHHHH i have so much stuff i need to do today (the most important of which is SLEEP) but guys guys i hafta tell you about this girl i met on the flight from tokyo to sydney. she was ( Read more... )

hey hey all you chinese-speakers, would you mind helping me out again? this sentence has me pretty confused.

由全法学联和上海市国际人才交流会主办的首届中国能源挑战和发展战略论坛于12月13日在法国巴黎举。

i get up to "... 的首届" before getting completely lost. um.

( cut for my shitty translation and because the majority of people on my flist don't speak chinese anyway. )

somehow i managed to do my chinese paper, even though i forgot what 一亿 is. large chinese and japanese numbers KILL ME, when people say shit like "2.5万" i'm whipping out my calculator and multiplying 2.5 by ten thousand and aughhh i forgot that 一亿 is 100 million, not a billion; I HATE YOU GIANT NUMBERS ( Read more... )