grumble

[redbird]

This is Thursday's entry, posting Friday morning:

Some stupid script kiddies have decided it would be cute to bring down LiveJournal, and my IP address is in the quarter of the net that's currently blocked. So, you'll see this sometime later (I'm writing in the Semagic client).

I've sent off a three-page Turbo apa zine, and now (or in an hour or two, depending how diligent I am) get to dive into a paid project. Deadline is midnight Saturday (because the client is in Beijing and wants it by noon Sunday their time), which shouldn't be a problem.

For the record,

(This is after a six-day break, longer than intended but I wasn't planning on a blizzard.)

Hip adduction, 110 pounds, 14, 13, 11+2
Hip abduction, 95 pounds, 14, 14, 12

Cardio, 33 minutes, top heart rate 154, went along mostly at 147-150

Bench press, 50 pounds, 12, 8; 45 pounds, 9+2
Seated leg press, 75 pounds, 3 sets of 15
Triceps pulldown, 30 pounds, 15, 12, 15
Crunches and arches, 3 sets of 15 each
Seated leg press, 160 pounds, 2; 140 pounds, 10
Adjustable row, 100 pounds, 2 sets of 15, then 8

Ended with the usual stretches



Oy. The paid project is making my friendly Japanese translations look simple. I don't know if this is because that company has better translators, or just that this is my first project polishing translations from Chinese. So far, one factual error (about US telephone lines), lots of stuff that I don't understand, and a tendency to refer to companies indiscriminately as "he" and "she" rather than "it". I knew Chinese didn't distinguish singular and plural grammatically; I wasn't expecting to find the same person referred to with "his" and "she" in consecutive sentences. This is starting to feel like a learning experience. At least they're paying me, not the other way around.

Comments

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Yes, the gender differentiation problem is a known issue for Mandarin speakers writing/speaking English. Mandarin uses a pronoun "ta" which can be distinguished in writing, but sounds exactly the same regardless of gender.

Feel free to write me off-journal (or on-journal) if you've got other questions...I'm not expert in Mandarin, but this sort of second language grammar/pronunciation issue is one of the things I've delved into in the past.

[redbird]

It doesn't help any that I don't have the original. Not that I know any Mandarin, but that means I can't send it to you.

I'll give them something better than they deserve, if not as good a translation that a genuinely bilingual translator would have achieved.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Blech. I hate it when I get something for editing from a badly (machine?) translated version without the original.