Thursday, December 24, 2009

Lost in Translation: Donkey Bridge

This happened years ago to a friend of mine at his University in the southern part of the Netherlands. A Dutch lecturer teaching Economics in English. He was trying to explain how to use a short cut in learning things. He said, "It's easy to remember using donkey bridge."

My confused Indonesian friend realized his lecturer was literally translating "ezelenbrug" or "jembatan keledai" to English. That's mnemonic to you in Dutch & Bahasa Indonesia.

1 comment:

colson said...

I guess ezelsbruggetje is part of your daily conversation now..

(For the first time in my life I try to visualize it; now I know it's a kind of insult:"you are so stupid that you only will understand if I buuild a bridge which even donkeys are able to cross")