I have been keeping up (albeit erratically) with many friends from Holland, whom we visited last March. Recently I received an email from one dear friend who had heard about the hurricane and was wondering whether we survived it all right.
(I am so bad about procrastinating, and only just now got around to replying. The problem with a proper correspondence is that I want to make it just so, so that I keep delaying until I have a good spot of time to do a reply proper justice, and that moment never comes. So, every so often I get seized with a burst of industry and feverish creativity, highly tempered with guilt, and dash off all the emails I have been owing to everyone, with apologies affixed for the belated and truncated nature of the email. It is not a good system, but it is the best I have been able to manage thus far.)
Back came a reply (in Dutch) that was clearly an automatic out-of-office reply. Out of curiosity I copied it and ran it through an online translation site, and deciphered the following message:
Of Monday 7 November till and with Friday 11 November I am absentee. In pressing cases, you can take up contact with my colleague M- (026, 8888888), or a message leave behind e-mail (06, 5555555) on my voice; I read and hear e-mail my c. q voice anyhow a time per day.
With kind greeting,
A-
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1 comment:
Ha! I love those kinds of translations! They can be so funny, but I really like how they give insight into how another language speaks - or words things. At least I'm assuming they do. At the very least, I enjoy the variety in English. There are so many ways to say something, that I like learning the variety. Ok, I don't think I'm making sense anymore. :)
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