Think Outside The Fast-Food-Box

Here's a challenge: You have to translate two full Chinese sentences ( 13 kanji symbols out of a total of approximately 47,035 in the  Kangxi dictionary ) in 1 hour. Let's suppose you can't speak or read Chinese and you don't know anyone who can ( just like me ).

Let's look at the obvious options:

1. You go to an "expert" website like kasamba and pay around $30.00 to get it right away
2. You can try to google it ( it's "free" but a waste of time )
3. You call a paid translation service ( cost at least $50.00 and they need forever to get back to you)
4. You send an email to friends who might know someone who can help you ( again free but uncertain)
5. You post it on a blog, on twitter or on facebook and ask your social network ( same things as email to friends )

This task is perfect for a "think-outside-the-fast-food-box" solution:

What I did two weeks ago ( when I had exactly this problem) was I called a local Chinese restaurant with delivery service to order sweet-sour chicken and rise. 30 minutes later, the delivery boy brought me my food and I asked him if he can help me translate this 2 sentence document for an extra tip of $3.00. He was more then happy to help me and had a fun time explaining to me the meaning of the symbols and the sentences. It was great!

There I was...sitting on my desk with the solution to my translation problems: Delicious Chinese Fast Food! Mmmhhh....

Any other good stories on how to solve challenging problems in unusual ways?

Comments

[Richard Michie]

You could have used our online service. We use only professional translators and it would have only cost you $11. I'm sure your delivery guy did a great job but he's not a professional translator. You can find the service here http://www.appliedlanguage.com/personal_translation/tattoo_translation.shtml
customers mainly use it for tattoos.

[Steli Efti]

Hey Richard,
thankx for pointing us to your service but frankly that's not the point.
I visited your website and it looks good for me. But still, there would be no way on earth how you guyz would automatically translate a jpg. file in Chinese for me within 60 minutes of uploading it online! Other then that...my delivery guy did a perfectly good job for my purpose ( it wasn't a blue print for heart surgery so I could risk the "un-professional" translation of a native speaker ) and it cost me $3.00 and my dinner problem was solved as well.

The point of this post is that alot of times we can find better solutions when we are forced to think "outside-the-box"

Any other good stories?

[Jean Browman--Cheerful Monk]

Great story! It made my day.

My problem is I'm learning a lot about blogging as I modify my WordPress theme to do what I want. I can figure it out, but sometimes it takes me a lot longer than I would like. How can I get some help that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Does anyone have a clue?

[Steli Efti]

Hey Jean,

thankx for your kind words. I'm not to familiar with wordpress ( but I'm thinking about switching for some time now) but the blogging community is a open and friendly place ( for the most part).

My tip would be for you to go to wordpress bloggers that you read and ask them to help you or point you in the right direction.

You can find blogging mentors. I had a couple of them. You'll be suprised how much help you're going to get in the blogosphere!!

If not - come back and contact me and I'll find someone to help you. Promise!

Keep on blogging and let us know how it's going!

[Demandfoundation]

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