March 2013
Beginner to intermediate
256 pages
5h 35m
English
book
Say Anything to Anyone, Anywhere: 5 Keys To Successful Cross-Cultural Communication
by Gayle Cotton
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Chapter 15
Triple Cross-Translate
Who Wrote These Instructions?
Although multicultural written communication can be challenging, it’s nothing compared with the challenge of achieving effective verbal translation. There is nothing worse than having something poorly translated into another language.
Not long ago, I referred to an instruction manual for how to change a battery on a technical device. The battery section had one of the most hilarious translations I’ve ever seen. It was so funny that I read the entire manual and couldn’t believe what I was reading! I would love to know how they came up with that translation. We now use those instructions as an example of how not to translate in all of our cross-cultural training courses.
The translation for what the instruction manual says about batteries is as follows.
Caution in Using Battery
Do not use in driving and walking since any accident could be happened. Do not have a short circuit, disassemble, heat or put battery in the fire, and do harm to eyes, also could cause the rupture of a doctor!
This is where you ask yourself—as I did—“Who wrote those instructions?”
Perhaps the most disappointing part is that the company responsible for the translation is a well-known technology company. How embarrassing for them to have this example of poor translation distributed all over the world.
This isn’t the first time that ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.