Ali Express

[cropwell]

My Ali Express order arrived a couple of days ago with bits missing. After informing the supplier, I received a message asking me to send a photo of the missing bits ------ WTF is he on?

Expected

28975

Received

28976

[Muzzer]

His English will be only slightly better than your Chinese and he may have machine translated his message using Baidu (similar to Google Translate). What he's asking you is to send a photo of what you received.

Presumably you haven't approved the payment yet.

[cropwell]

The brass nut is really sloppy, but it is actually to my advantage for my application. The whole lot was a only fiver anyway and I am sure that it will be sorted. My real annoyance is that the project will be subject to further delay.

I don't really see the value of sending a photo unless the goods were damaged.

I understand that his English may be better than my Chinese as my Chinese language knowledge is close to zero.

I haven't yet acknowledge receipt of goods on Ali, so his funds are still in escrow.

[Neale]

How about the library with a notice saying, "Do you want to learn to read?"

Sometimes you just have to guess what they meant and not what they said!

[cropwell]

How about the library with a notice saying, "Do you want to learn to read?"

Or the car sticker that says 'If you can read this thank a teacher.'

[Muzzer]

Yes, sorry wasn't trying to sound glib but I worked for a Chinese company for several years and worked in and out of there for the best part of 15 years. Thank god I haven't been back for the last couple of years, as I'm now too old and fat and stupid to be trudging around the place any longer.

Most Chinese engineers have only a (very) basic ability in written English, as it's taught in school and is the universal technical language. Most aren't comfortable speaking English at all and even then, most of the teachers have never left the country in the first place. I guess that's your Chinese whispers in action.

The reason most user manuals are so crap is because they translate them with online translators. I've done it myself in desperation and the results are very similar - they sort of make sense if you know what they mean in the first place, otherwise they quickly become gobbledegook.

[cropwell]

Yes, sorry wasn't trying to sound glib
Don't worry - I have used online translators myself (Chinese to English) and though they are useful tools, they do not have the style or idiom of English if it were translated by a native English speaker.

As an amusing aside, I was part of a team which had one Malay bloke in it (his name was Tin Tek Tung btw). When a Londoner colleague told him his English wasn't good (it was though), he only spoke to that person in Malay for a week and if he complained Tin would say something like 'You learn Malay' in a voice like that was all he knew. Until the apology was issued.

[Neale]

I've been using the SZGH manuals recently and while the English is not good, it's perfectly understandable with a little bit of work - as Muzzer says, if you understand the basic subject it makes sense but there's no way that a beginner would make much of it. Hey, I know people who been speaking English since birth and still struggle!

[cropwell]

I know people who been speaking English since birth and still struggle!

Gosh, both my children took about a year before they could speak and another two before they could engage in meaningful debate :cool:

[cropwell]

There is the old joke about the first computer program to translate between Russian and English. They put the phrase 'Out of sight, out of mind' into it and it came out in Russian. Then they put the Russian phrase back in and it came out as 'Invisible idiot'.

[JAZZCNC]

Hey, I know people who been speaking English since birth and still struggle!

This made me think of a snowboarding holiday in Switzerland where my mate who has a very broad Barnsley accent, (just think Broad Yorkshire accent on steroids) was trying to chat up a french bird and I had to translate from "Barnsglish" to "Yorksglish" so this poor lass had half a chance of understanding English, let's just say he never got any tail... :hysterical:

[Kitwn]

This made me think of a snowboarding holiday in Switzerland where my mate who has a very broad Barnsley accent, (just think Broad Yorkshire accent on steroids) was trying to chat up a french bird and I had to translate from "Barnsglish" to "Yorksglish" so this poor lass had half a chance of understanding English, let's just say he never got any tail... :hysterical:

As every Englishman knows, the way to make a foreigner understand you is to speak loudly and with slow, exaggerated articulation. This is a characteristic of the normal Yorkshire accent, especially when speaking to people from Lancashire.

[JAZZCNC]

As every Englishman knows, the way to make a foreigner understand you is to speak loudly and with slow, exaggerated articulation. This is a characteristic of the normal Yorkshire accent, especially when speaking to people from Lancashire.

We don't speak to Lancastrian's we use universal sign language. The same one we learned from speaking with smart-arse Aussies... :thumsup:

[Neale]

It's easy to make mistakes in a foreign language. Back in her school days, my daughter had to say something in class about her recent trip to France, so she said, "when you go into a room, you have to kiss everyone." She checked the word for "kiss" in her dictionary. Unfortunately, the translation she used had another, more common, use, and what she ended up saying was, "When you go into a room, you have to shag everyone." Fortunately, no-one but the teacher understood what she said...

[cropwell]

Pissed off with myself. It looks as if I have been scammed 3 times with goods bought from Facebook adverts. A graphics input tablet for £30 was delivered yesterday. It is little more than a kid's etch-a-sketch and certainly not the goods pictured and described. I will be pursuing through Paypal and Facebook. This prompted me to check the other two things I bought and it looks as though they are also dodgy. I also bought some 2TB memory sticks from eBay and they test out as 590MB*. So they are going to be refunded. If the vendor doesn't want to play fair then I will take it through the returns procedure.

*It is easy to spoof the capacity, because Windows reads it from the firmware in the device.

I found out that 'flog it and run' scams use tracked delivery services, so it is hard to argue you didn't get the goods - even if they sent you a pair of socks not an iPhone.

I feel that Amazon, eBay and AliExpress have a relatively good customer service. For their own commercial viability. they certainly want to protect the trust in their platform and refund readily in the case of faulty or mis-described goods. Facebook on the other hand don't seem to give a flying shite about anything.

Returning to the tales of mistranslation :- At school I had to learn and recite a classic French poem 'La Cigale et La Formi' (the Grasshopper and the Ant) and got one word wrong. Bite instead of Bise (Quand la bise fut venue - When winter came) Bite means cock (Le todger). Again the teacher laughed and wouldn't tell anyone why.

[Kitwn]

We don't speak to Lancastrian's we use universal sign language. The same one we learned from speaking with smart-arse Aussies... :thumsup:

:cool:

[cropwell]

Pissed off with myself. It looks as if I have been scammed 3 times with goods bought from Facebook adverts. A graphics input tablet for £30 was delivered yesterday. It is little more than a kid's etch-a-sketch and certainly not the goods pictured and described. I will be pursuing through Paypal and Facebook. This prompted me to check the other two things I bought and it looks as though they are also dodgy. I also bought some 2TB memory sticks from eBay and they test out as 590MB*. So they are going to be refunded. If the vendor doesn't want to play fair then I will take it through the returns procedure.

Well the Etch-a-sketch has been refunded, so I have got a free kid's toy and the seller of the memory sticks told me to put it through the eBay Returns procedure and he will refund me when he gets the things back.