A few days ago one of my former students from my year in China emailed me to see if I could find the mistakes in something he’d written for work. I wasn’t sure how to reply. Tonight I replied and told him there are so many mistakes I’m not even sure what it all means, and that maybe he could start by making the sentences shorter.
Here’s what he wanted me to proofread:
Profile
Our company is by the Dongguan bureau of industry and commerce authorization, has in Dongguan the healthy group company and the Chinese chemistry ministry of industry Zhonglian rubber main corporation initiates together, by famous producer SSL group and China famous producers of a ¡õcenter healthy group limited liability company in August, 1999 the official evaluation joint capital contract, invests 7.9 million Yuan establishments, is China produces the adult health care thing the joint venture, produces and sells the happy happy series product. At present, it also is happy happy series product produces the factory in world 17th. We are the natural toy specialized production factory, by reason of the unremitting goal, the abundant research and development, the production strength, obtained each correlation customer market the approval! This company host camp product uses the import raw material, the sense of reality is lifelike, the majority of products are sell in distant markets North America, Western Europe, area Southeast Asia, has won various customers good appraisal. Our company has introduced the world advanced production equipment and the craft technology. The product manufactures the entire process to realize “GMP the” standardization management, the product quality achieved the SSL group unifies the international standard, its correlation technical specification surmounted the nowadays whole world strictest European Union CE test standard, as well as international authentication standard ISO9002. Is China produces one of adult health care thing companies, forecast in the future two years the market share will double. The company has 8 years specialized production and researches and develops the adult thing, the natural appliance experience. Once provided for the domestic many well-known merchants puts up a factory the start technical support, including the equipment production, the installment, the debugging and new staff training and so on, and provided OEM for it. Company’s prestige and the technical level obtained the customer market approval, set up the good oral traditions in the domestic customer, we through and do with the domestic and foreign famous merchants, we have grasped the world most advanced production technology and the design idea, product covering thing all classes, including female uses the series Male uses the series Crystal set of SM instrument and so on . The happy happy series product take the brand-new quality image as China’s adult, the natural health will make the positive endeavor, and will give the advantageous supplement to China’s adult market high grade demand. Sincerely welcome each place to count the fresh contraceptive to stand with the domestic and foreign dealers establishes the broadest cooperation relations with our company.
The scary thing is that he was one of the better students.
I feel bad for not sending him a more detailed reply, but I simply don’t know what to say.
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12 Comments
jordan, this seems like a prime example of automated online translation!
List of racial discriminations in Malaysia, practiced by government as well as government agencies. This list is an open secret. Best verified by government itself because it got the statistics.
This list is not in the order of importance, that means the first one on the list is not the most important and the last one on the list does not mean least important.
This list is a common knowledge to a lot of Malaysians, especially those non-malays (Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans, Orang Asli, Tamils, etc) who were being racially discriminated.
Interesting. Jordan, what on earth were you teaching your students mate????!!! Hehehehe…
As for the un-related response above, yes, there is endemic racism in Malaysia, and it hurts everyone. In order for you to display such information, especially if you want it to be spread around and read by others, you had better quote your sources and give references. Otherwise, it just looks like a frustrated tirade laced with anecdotes…
My wife is Chinese, and we all know whats going on.
That long comment is certainly thought-provoking, but since it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of my post, I’m going to remove it, or at least edit it. Perhaps the commenter can post it under one of the many posts I’ve written about racism in Malaysia.
Spam?
that is so sad. the student’s english.
as for the racism, i think we’re all on the same page, we think its sick and there’s not much we can do but support each other. we are getting there.
Hilarious. Reminds me of my high school days, when students used to hound me to edit their work. These were students from Asia who had immigrated to Canada and gone through the ESL program but still couldn’t do basic grammar and spelling. I can still recall the vague helplessness I felt. On the one hand, I couldn’t crush their spirits by telling them their writing was terrible and they needed to redo their entire paper, especially when they were on a deadline, and on the other hand, I didn’t want to have edited their work and then see them receive a low mark anyway.
OK… Happy happy product…adult? Is that company selling cheap vibrators?
Perhaps you need to learn Mandarin so that you can try to understand him. I would give him a credit for asking you to proofread, at least he made the effort to learn. I, too, still need to ask you and some English native speaker friends to improve my English.
My comment————————-> HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
i guess that’s J from Class B?
Han: The student’s English, yes. The racism…that’s another post.
Safiyyah: I can totally relate.
Nizar: Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always had a lot of respect for this particular student. He was head of the college’s English association and was always enthusiastic about improving his English. He was one of the very few who were actually willing to open their mouths and speak. I’ve always applauded their initiative, their guts, and their progress.
But when it comes to writing…let’s just say I won’t need to learn Mandarin. It’s pretty obvious the culprits are an insufficient grasp of English grammar (Chinese students will swear they’re masters of grammar because they spend a lot of their time on it, but they really suck at it) and an unfortunate reliance on those bloody electronic dictionaries. I don’t know much Mandarin, but I’m assuming everything was translated directly.
Yee Ling: Bingo! Unless you know any other GIEC students who are currently working in a sex toy factory…
That’s what I meant :) We all assume everything was translated directly, so perhaps if we knew Mandarin we could get what actually he tried to say. Of course, learning Mandarin is not a must for you. I was saying it sardonically.. Excuse my English… :) I bought more English books than Science books when I was in hi-school but I did better in Science! Donno how, I thought I had more interest in languages…. I love languages (and music) and I love science too. :) Now I think I love kids (especially when they r 1-3 years old). I’m just wondering if you marked all my e-mails and comments, what would my percentage be haha…. (grammar:x%, content:C+, maturity:50%, answering the question:40%, handwriting:90%)
Ha, that looks a lot like an online automated translation. I think your old student was just being lazy and wanted you to do the work.