Inquire about going to Ethiopia to work as an English translator in the Oriental Industrial Park. Thank you very much!

Ethiopia is a multi-ethnic country, with more than 80 ethnic groups said to be present. There are also many languages. As a country with a long history, China is very lucky to have Qin Shihuang's "books with the same text, cars with the same track, and travel with the same spirit". Although we speak various local languages ??and although our spoken languages ??are different from each other, Chinese characters It can travel over a large territory. It's different in Ethiopia. It's only more than 30 kilometers away from the capital Addis Ababa. The language circulating there is not Amharic, Ethiopia's legal language, but a language called Euro. The national language of Mick not only has language but also writing, which is so complicated.

Fortunately, although Ethiopia was once occupied by Italy, it is the only country in Africa that has not been a colony of Western countries. It chose English as its second official language after Amharic and has adopted it throughout the country. In this way, most people of all ages who have gone to school for a few years can understand English and use it widely, which brings us great convenience.

Compared with English education in China, English education in Chinese schools focuses on examinations, while Ethiopian focuses on communication. I have learned English in China for many years, but I am still a mute when I go abroad. However, primary school students in Ethiopia can talk to others in English, which is very enviable. In the morning, I met a little boy with a grass-cutting sickle on his body and a schoolbag in his hand. We started chatting with each other, from school to cattle herding, from Amhara to Oromik, from across the street. When the factory talked about the garden around it, it turned out to be very orderly. It should be said that the so-called bilingual education schools in China are everywhere here. This also makes me think, how closely is there a connection between the popularity of foreign language knowledge in a country and the country's prosperity?

Since Amharic is not like Chinese, it has greater limitations in its ability to express modern science. Almost all subjects in professional and technical schools use English textbooks. Therefore, For people with an educational background above a technical school, English is an indispensable language skill. This makes the pidgin English version instructions and operating manuals of the machinery and equipment exported from China become a laughing stock. An old engineer even jokingly asked if these materials were written in French, meaning that we should learn English. people can't understand. After reading these well-known domestic equipment manufacturers who have spent a lot of money to provide translated equipment information, I can't help but feel ashamed to be teased like this.

It’s funny to say that most of China’s equipment is also digested and absorbed from equipment in advanced Western countries. When the sages of the Chinese equipment industry racked their brains to think about how to make each English-specific equipment When nouns became easy-to-understand Chinese words, and when I thought about how to turn English special nouns into understandable Chinese words according to the principle of honesty and elegance and the functions of the equipment, I never thought of the many latecomers. These words must also be restored to their original English vocabulary. Therefore, the instruction manual produced according to the popular Chinese characters in the country and using various popular translation software has become completely inconsistent.

If you know a little English, you should have no problem communicating with local educated people. At the same time, the conversation also tests whether the things previously learned are solid enough. I realize more and more that the so-called "all the things I have learned have been returned to the teacher after too long a gap" is purely an excuse. It should mean that I have never learned it well before, even after direct and indirect triggers. That feeling of déjà vu.

After a technical training, it was very hard to compare the machine parts, from Chinese to English, and then from English to Chinese. I couldn't help but think of the German expert Su Ke who brought German technicians to Wuxi to install equipment more than 20 years ago. He also changed from German to English and then from English to German, exactly the same.

For ordinary workers who have not gone to school for a few days, the language barrier is huge. They don’t even understand Amharic, and many equipment operations are done through body language. They learned it. As a last resort, you have to switch from Chinese to English, then from English to Amharic, and then to the local language. Suddenly I remembered the teleportation show on TV. I really don’t know how much the person who accepted it at the end knew.

In short, Ethiopia’s language environment is very suitable for Chinese partners.