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August 29, 2003
Dekinai
Yesterday a man I had never met walked into my office.
Man: "I'm looking for Chris Lyon."
Me: "That's me."
Man: (confused) "Um, I heard Chris Lyon was... uh... Japanese?"
Me: "Sorry to disappoint you."
Man: "I mean, uh, can read Japanese..."
I told him that I could read a little, so he brought me back to his office and showed me his computer, which was apparently running a Japanese version of Windows. In the middle of the screen was a big bad error dialog, and he asked me to translate it. I stared at it for a few minutes, trying to glean some meaning from the few katakana words I could find. My kanji reading abilities had become so rusty that about all I could tell him was that this was in fact an error dialog.
I went back to my desk annoyed at myself. I had used Japanese Windows for almost a year when I worked in Japan, and now I couldn't even translate a simple error dialog.
The next time someone comes to me with a Japanese question, I think I'll just refer them to the Japanese employee who sits down the hall.