Lost in Translation

Every Tuesday at 4pm, my company will have a meeting to discuss about the company's future direction.

Today, the boss was talking about installing an additional button on a tag. Tag is something like your EZ-Link card; when you put the tag against a reader, information will be transmitted.

Then he turned around to ask the Chinese engineer whether he understood the whole thing. The engineer smiled back weakly and shaked his head.

It happened that I sat beside him and was arrowed to translate for him.

So I said " 要在tag (dunno how to translate) 上面打一个洞，然后装上一个钮扣 (button that is sewn on shirts)。”

The engineer gave me the "huh" look and said " 是不是按钮 (button that is used as a control)？”

Wah.. Sibei paiseh sia... I told him that he was right.

My Mandarin is getting worse.

Maybe Ken's is better than mine now.