Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Oh go on then. A joke (in Chinese)

Class is out here, but my teacher is still in touch by email, and encouraging us to communicate in Chinese. Jokes - even old ones like this - make far more interesting homework than most things. So here was my first attempt (after being corrected by my teacher):

客户: 我有三个问题。 你是怎么收费的?
律师: $100 一个小时。你其它两个问题是什么?

Laugh? I nearly did.

3 comments:

liulianxiaoyu said...

我有点儿看不明白。。。。。。

Unknown said...

Ah. Well it's like this. Lawyer jokes usually begin with the (perhaps unfair) assumption that lawyers are greedy, crooked thieves.

The would-be client has three legal questions for which he would like professional answers. But before engaging the lawyer, he asks the lawyer's fee.

The lawyer answers, and then counts the question of fee as one of the three questions (thus confirming the assumption that all lawyers are greedy...)

Get it?

liulianxiaoyu said...

现在明白了, 谢谢。

一开始,我以为你这个笑话没有讲完,因为,我记得以前我看到过类似的一个笑话(我在网上找了找,没找到),但觉得比你这个笑话要长一点儿。

另外,我觉得客户的问题和律师的回答之间的联系不是特别紧密,所以不容易看出来。当然,只是我的个人观点,也许是因为我太笨了。:)